Following heavy price losses suffered by virtually all the highly capitalised stocks, especially Nestle, and Guinness, equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange closed on a downturn yesterday, as market capitalisation depreciated significantly by N124billion.

Yesterday, 32 stocks depreciated in price, as Nestle led the losers’ chart with 40.00 kobo to close at N1,250.00 per share, while Guinness followed with 2.01 kobo to close at N100.00 per share.

Unilever shed 2.00 kobo to close at N38.00 per share. WAPCO and Dangote Cement dropped 1.45 kobo to close at N50.00 and N236.55 per share respectively. Zenith Bank depreciated by 1.16 kobo to close at N23.68 per share.

PZ Cussons shed 0.60 kobo to close at N22.40 per share. Cadbury lost 0.53 kobo to close at N11.78 per share. Dangote Flour dropped 0.30 kobo to close at N9.15 per share. Eterna Oil also shed 0.20 kobo to close at N3.99 per share.

On the other hand, Flour Mills topped the gainers’ chart with 0.89 kobo to close at N34.89 per share, while Nigerian Breweries followed with 0.77 kobo to close at N139.75 per share.

Forte Oil gained 0.65 kobo to close at N48.62 per share. Okomu Oil garnered 0.21 kobo to close at N68.20 per share. Nigerian Aviation Handling Company appreciated by 0.17 kobo to close at N3.72 per share.

Vitafoam added 0.14 kobo to close at N2.95 per share. Fidson gained 0.13 kobo to close at N3.90 per share. Medview Air added 0.07 kobo to close at N1.66 per share. NEM also gained 0.06 kobo to close at N1.47 per share.

Consequently, the All-share index which opened at 37,312.28 lost 358.87 points or 0.96 per cent to close at 36,953.41.Similarly, the market capitalisation shed N124billion or 0.96 per cent to close at N12.789trillion against N12.913trillion.

Also, the volume of shares traded dropped by 29.13 per share with an exchange of 238.36 million shares valued at N3.42billion achieved in 4,238 deals.This was in contrast with 336.34 million shares worth N30.02billion transacted in 3,778 deals on Monday.

FBN Holdings was the most active stock for the day, trading 75.80 million shares worth N541.28million.Diamond Bank followed with 33.82 million shares valued at N37.64 million, while Stanbic IBTC traded 14.42 million shares worth N613.96million.Transcorp sold 11.38 million shares valued at N15.45 million and Zenith International Bank sold 10.57 million shares worth N257.49million.