Blue chips drop price on NSE

Some highly capitalised stocks on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday recorded huge price losses due to sustained profit taking by investors. Nestle topped the price losers’ chart, dropping N18 to close at N1, 102 per share. Guinness lost N5 to close at N212, while Nigerian Breweries depreciated by N4.50 to close at N145.50 per share.

Dangote Cement lost N3.96 to close at N235, while Presco dipped by N2.42 to close at N46.06 per share.

On the other hand, Julius Berger led the gainers’ table with 95k to close at N75 per share.

PZ followed with a gain of 69k to close at N37, while Redstarex grew by 21k to close at N4.58 per share. UPL also gained 15k to close at N4.20, while CUTIX appreciated by 8k to close at N2.10 per share.

The All-Share Index lost 900.67 points or 2.24 per cent to close at 39,378.15 against the 40,278.82 recorded on Wednesday. The market capitalisation dipped by N289 billion or 2.24 per cent to close at N12.62 trillion compared with N12.91 trillion achieved on Wednesday. In all, investors staked N4.75 billion on 335.301 million shares in 5,013 deals.

This was against 354.886 million shares worth N5.92 billion traded in 5,091 deals on Wednesday. The financial services sector remained the most active with Zenith Bank emerging the most traded equity with 46.05 million shares worth N930.95 billion.

Transcorp came second with 35.36 million shares valued at N140 million, while FCMB sold 23.50 million shares worth N87.98 million. Wema Bank accounted for 22.76 million shares valued at N22.98 million, while UBA traded 19.01 million shares valued at N145.11 million.