Dealers at the Nigerian Stock Exchange

Profit taking by investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange  (NSE ) persisted on Thursday for the third consecutive day with market indicators depreciating further by 0.17 per cent due to losses by some highly capitalised equities.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN ) reports that Nestlé, for the second day running, led the losers’ table with a loss of N6 to close at N752 per share.

Forte Oil followed with N2 to close at N69 and Dangote Cement declined by N1 to close at N167 per share.

Nigerian Breweries shed 60k to close at N142, while International Breweries lost 48k to close at N17. 50 per share.

Market analysts attributed the development to economic uncertainties and ‘wait and see’ attitude of investors to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)  meeting coming up next week in view of high interest rate and inflation rate.

Consequently, the market capitalisation dropped further by N15 billion or 0.17 per cent to close at N9.015 trillion against N9.030 trillion achieved on Wednesday.

In the same vein, the All-Share which opened at 26,245.34 shed 43.74 points or 0.17 per cent to close at 26,201.60.

Total led the gainers’ table, growing by N9.52 to close at N294.97 per share.

Mobil Oil followed with a gain of N3.50 to close at N264 and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated appreciated by 41k to close at N10.10 per share.

Also, the volume of shares traded closed lower as investors staked N2.61 billion on 196. 47 million shares exchanged in 3,317 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 394.82 million shares valued at N1.38 billion traded in 3,015 deals on Wednesday.

Access Bank recorded the highest volume of shares, trading 31.99 million shares valued N224.09 million.

Diamond Bank followed with a total of 28.39 million shares worth N31.49 million and United Capital traded 24.13 million shares valued at N80.94 million.

Okomu Oil exchanged 19.67 million shares worth N869.41 million, while Transcorp traded 11.89 million shares valued at N10.19 million. (NAN)