Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange(NSE) yesterday closed southwards as investors leveraged on the gains of the past few days to take profits.
Market watchers attributed the appreciable losses in the twin market indicators to dealing members (stockbrokers) returning to the floor of the exchange to take profits basically to have some money to prepare their children and wards who are going back to schools after the strike action embarked by the organised labour and civil society over fuel subsidy removal was called off.
Consequently, the All-Share Index dropped by 74.39 basis point or 0.4 per cent to close at 20,998.88, while the market capitalisation depreciated by N24 billion or 0.4 per cent to close the activities in the day at N6.616 trillion as against N6.640 trillion recorded on Tuesday.
A further review of transaction in the day showed that 18 companies pitched their tent on the gainers table while 21 others were listed on the laggard for want of poor patronage in the days trading.
Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc and Honeywell Flour Mills Plc, led the gainers chart with 5 per cent each to? close at N5.51 and, N2.97 respectively while Dangote Sugar followed with a gain of 4.94 per cent to close at N4.89.
Conversely, Livestocks Feeds depreciated by 5 per cent to close the day at 76 kobo, while Custodian Insurance fell by 4.92 per cent to close at N2.32.
On the subsectorial level, the financial service was boosted by the shares of GTB and Skye Bank in the banking subsector and Continental Reinsurance in the insurance subsector.
Specifically, the banking subsector led with a turnover of 51.1 million ordinary shares worth N374.3 million done in 1,554 deals, while the insurance subsector traded 28.4 million ordinary shares worth N21.3 million swapped by investors in 141 transactions.
On the whole investors exchanged a total of 106 million ordinary shares valued at N873.7 million in 3,297 deals.