Investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday embarked on profit taking, forcing the market capitalisation to drop by N63 billion after a two-day growth caused by the 2016 budget passage.
The market capitalisation, which opened at N8.884 trillion, dipped N63 billion or 0.71 per cent to close at N8.821 trillion.
Major blue chips posted price depreciation, led by Forte Oil with a loss of N9.26 to close at N210 per share.
Dangote Cement trailed with a loss of N4.17 kobo to close at N163.83 and Lafarge Africa dropped N2 to close at N69.50 per share.
University Press lost 28k to close at N5.42 and Portland Paints depreciated by 10k to close at N1.97 per share.
Conversely, Unilever Nigeria led the gainers’ table, growing by N1.77 to close at N37.31 per share.
Flour Mills came second with a gain of N1.59 to close at N24.99, while Nigerian Breweries gained 81k to close at N117.51 per share.
Union Dicon appreciated by 58k to close at N12.28 and PZ Industries grew by 43k to close at N21.05 per share.
A breakdown of the activity chart indicated that FBN Holdings was the most active stock, exchanging 29.264 million shares worth N100.75 million.
It was followed by Zenith Bank with a total of 27.66 million shares valued at N380.83 million, while Transnational sold 26.87 million shares worth N29.93 million.
Wema Bank accounted for 26.33 million shares valued at N19.69 million, while United Bank for Africa traded 22.36 million shares worth N76.12 million.
In all, investors staked N1.36 billion on 237.84 million shares transacted in 3,885 deals.
This was against the 559.96 million shares valued at N6.44 billion achieved in 3,655 deals on Monday.
