Equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday dropped both in volume and value terms.
Financial analysts attributed the lull in the market to sell pressure and the forthcoming Islamic celebration, as investors are keeping their money in preparation for the festival.
Meanwhile, the All-Share Index declined by 50.97 points or 0.17 per cent to close at 29,403.12 against the 29,454.09 posted on Wednesday.
The market capitalisation, which opened at N10.128 trillion, lost N17 billion or 0.17 per cent to close at N1.111 trillion due to price losses by some blue chip equities.
Similarly, the volume of shares traded decreased by 33.38 per cent as a total of 306.095 million shares worth N3.09 billion were traded by investors in 4,650 deals.
This was against the 459.458 million shares valued at N4.28 billion traded in 3,396 deals on Wednesday.
Cadbury led the losers’ chart with a loss of N1.45 to close at N23.06 per share.
Stanbic IBTC came second with N1.24 to close at N23.66, while UACN went down by 62k to close at N31.68 per share.
ETI lost 59k to close at N18.16 while International Breweries dipped 50k to close at N17 per share.
Conversely, Nestle topped the gainers’ chart, gaining N18 to close at N820 per share.
Guinness garnered N6.57 to close at N138.05, while Dangote Cement up by N1.94 to close at N165 per share.
PZ Cussons rose by N1 to close at N26, and Lafarge Wapco rose by 96k to close at N97 per share.
UBA emerged the most traded stock, accounting for 55.33 billion shares worth N198.29 million in 447 deals.
Access Bank recorded a turnover of 31.70 million shares valued N148.47 million in 161 deals, while Transcorp sold 30.77 million shares valued N68.29 million in 254 deals.
