Investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday embarked on profit taking, reversing the three-day growth recorded by the market indices.
The All-Share Index lost 59.77 points at 0.24 per cent to close at 24,850.11, compared with 24,909.88 achieved on Thursday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation, which opened at N8.568 trillion, lost N21 billion or 0.25 per cent to close at N8.547 trillion.
Market analysts attributed the development to profit taking embarked upon by some investors to take advantage of the gains recorded by the market in the last three days.
Major blue chips recorded price depreciation and this was led by Nestle with a loss of N20.01 to close at N620 per share.
Guinness followed with N1.84 to close at N98, while Access Bank dipped 15k to close at N3.83 per share.
Champion Breweries shed 14k to close at N2.81 and Tiger Branded dropped 13k to close at N2.78 per share.
On the other hand, Seplat led the gainers’ table with a gain of N4 to close at N340 per share.
Mobil garnered 99k to close at N155 and Nigerian Breweries rose by 68k to close at N105.70 per share.
UACN chalked up 57k to close at N19 and Berger Paints increased by 36k to close at N9.30 per share.
In spite of the drop recorded by market indicators, the volume of shares traded appreciated marginally by 5.56 per cent with 188.72 million shares valued at N1.51 billion transacted in 3,050 deals.
This was in contrast with 178.78 million shares worth N1.81 billion exchanged in 3,223 deals on Thursday.
Zenith Bank drove the turnover volume, accounting for 30.52 million shares valued at N369.46 million.
Access Bank came second with an exchange of 26.35 million shares worth N101.97 million, while FCMB Group sold 19.51 million shares worth N20.46 million.
FBN Holdings traded 13.15 million shares valued at N43.87 million and United Capital transacted 10.41 million shares worth N15.58 million.
