Profit taking has continued to take toll on the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), as more blue chip stocks join the league of losers, resulting to a further slide in market capitalisation by N294 billion.

Analysts at Afrinvest Limited had predicted that the equities market may tradeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeee e e sideways in early trades due to profit taking in consumer goods counters, which could offset bargain hunting in banking stocks whose earnings are yet to be released.

Yesterday, virtually all the blue chip stocks depreciated in price with Morison leading 34 others on the losers’ chart with 8.16 per cent to close at N0.90 per share. PZ Cussons and Stanbic IBTC followed with 5.00 per cent to close at N25.65 and N38.95 per share respectively.

National Salt Company of Northern Nigeria, and Cement Company of Northern Nigeria shed 4.96 per cent to close at N11.69 and N10.15 per share. TransNational Corporation lost 4.93 per cent to close at N1.35 per share. Vitafoam dropped 4.91 per cent to close at N2.71 per share.

Champion depreciated by 4.82 per cent to close at N2.37 per share. Caverton and NEM lost 4.76 per cent to close at N1.00 per share respectively.
On the other hand, 11 stocks recorded price appreciation as GlaxoSmithKline and Berger Paints topped the gainer’s chart with N1.00 and N0.34 per share respectively.

Golden Breweries followed with 4.71 per cent to close at N0.89 per share. Conoil added 3.99 per cent to close at N33.89 per share. Learn Africa garnered 3.80 per cent to close at N0.82 per share. AIICO gained 3.64 per cent to close at N0.57 percent.

Wema Bank gained 1.92 per cent to close at N0.53 per share. Continental Reinsurance appreciated by 1.64 per cent to close at N1.24 per share. Seplat garnered 0.42 per cent to close at N482.00 per share. Unilever also added 0.29 per cent to close at N45.63 per share.

On account of the profit-taking, the market Capitalisation of the NSE dropped by N294billion or 2.2 per cent from N13.080trillion recorded when the market reopened for the week on Monday to N12.786trillion yesterday. Also, the All-share index fell by 854.36 points from 37,950.96 to 37,096.60.

The banking sub-sector maintained its dominance in volume terms with 258 million shares traded in 1,651 deals while the conglomerates followed with 10.4 million units in 170 deals.

Transactions in the shares of Access Bank boosted activities in the banking subsector with 179 million shares in 266 deals followed by United Bank for Africa with 24 million units exchanged in 322 deals.

The conglomerates sub-sector was lifted by activities in the shares of TransNational Corporation with 10 million units in 130 deals. In all, investors exchanged 391 million units in 5,284 deals.