Trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) maintained a negative trend, with the market capitalisation shedding ₦239 billion, mixed sentiments ahead of the end of the year with window dressing by fund managers.
Reports have it that the market capitalisation, which opened at ₦11.576 trillion lost ₦239 billion or 2.07 per cent to close at ₦11.337 trillion.
Also, the All-Share Index lost 654.91 or 2.07 per cent to close at 31,037.72 compared with 31,692.63 achieved on Thursday.
Nestle recorded the highest loss to lead the laggards’ table, shedding ₦137.10 to close at ₦1,480 per share.
Seplat Petroleum Development Plc trailed with a loss of ₦50.40 to close at ₦592.50, while Dangote Cement depreciated by ₦4.70 to close at ₦183 per share.
Forte Oil dipped ₦2.50 to close at ₦31.85, while UACN went down by ₦1.05 to close at ₦9.75 per share.
On the other hand, Stanbic IBTC led the gainers’ table during the day, gaining ₦2.65 to close at ₦53.25 per share.
Presco followed with a gain of ₦1.85 to close at ₦64, while Flour Mills gained 85k to close at ₦21.95 per share.
Berger Paint added 75k to close at ₦8.60, while Mobil increased 70k to close at ₦185.50 per share.
Mr Ambrose Omordion, Chief Operating Officer, InvestData Ltd., said that trading ended in yet another volatile session laced with profit taking.
Omordion said that the oscillating trend would likely continue into 2019, following wealth economic fundamentals with oil benchmark trading below the Federal Government 2018 and 2019 budget benchmark.
An analysis of the activity chart shows that investors bought and sold 1.96 billion worth ₦6.54 billion in 4,080 deals.
This was against the 452.26 million shares valued at ₦2.61 billion exchanged in 3,520 deals.
NEM Insurance led the activity chart emerging as the most active stock, exchanging 909.55 million shares worth ₦3.01 billion.
Wema Bank followed with an account of 657.28 million shares valued at ₦335.83 million, while NAHCO sold 98.54 million shares worth ₦413.24million.
Medview Air traded 76.09 million shares valued at ₦152.18 million, while Zenith Bank exchanged 39.61 million shares worth ₦913.71 million.