By Dipo Olowookere
Performance on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited was tepid on Tuesday as investors turned their eyes to Christmas sales. This caused a slight profit taking during the session and left the market flat.
The market breadth was seen to be negative yesterday as there were 16 price losers and 11 price winners, indicating weak investor sentiment.
The biggest riser in price, UPDC REIT, managed to gain 8.62 percent during the session to settle at N3.15, while shares in a distant second, the Royal Exchange, appreciated 5.95 percent to 89 Kobo. Ardova rose 4.19% to N17.40, Vitafoam improved 3.57% to N21.75 and Custodian Investment rose 2.75% to N5.60.
On the other hand, the price that fell the most during the day was Neimeth, and it lost 9.66 percent to trade at N1.31. SCOA Nigeria was down 9.41 percent to 77 Kobo, UPDC was down 7.07 percent to 92 Kobo, RT Briscoe was down 6.90 percent to 27 Kobo and Chams was down 4.55 percent to 21 Kobo.
trade publication reports that the banking and energy sectors appreciated 0.27 percent and 0.22 percent each yesterday, while the insurance counters and consumer goods depreciated 0.27 percent and 0.01 percent. percent, respectively, with the industrial goods space closing unchanged.
At the close of business, the All-Share Index (ASI) rose marginally by 1.22 points to 49,416.18 points from 49,414.96 points, while the market capitalization grew by around N1 billion to N26.916 trillion from N26.915 trillion.
The activity chart was mixed on Tuesday, as trading volume increased while trading value and number of trades declined.
A total of 100.1 million shares valued at Naira 1.3 billion changed hands in 3,186 trades compared to 76.7 million shares valued at Naira 1.33 billion traded in 3,260 trades the previous day, an improvement on the volume of operations of 34.00%, a drop in the value of transactions by 2.26 percent, and a decrease in the number of transactions by 2.27 percent.
GTCO was the most active stock of the session as it sold 16.4 million units, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance traded 9.3 million units, UBA traded 7.1 million units, FTN Cocoa also sold 7.1 million units and Access Holdings traded 5.3 million units.
