Equity transactions at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), sustained the sliding profile yesterday, as profit-taking led to more highly capitalised stocks depreciating in price, causing the All-share index to plunge further by 1.56 per cent.

Yesterday, the index shed 600.94 points or 1.56 per cent to close at 37,933.70 against 38,534.64 posted on Wednesday.

However, the market capitalisation rose by N77billion or 0.57 per cent to close at N13.497trillion compared with N13.420 trillion achieved on Wednesday.

The Chief Operating Officer InvestData Ltd., Ambrose Omordion, attributed the growth in market capitalisation to the listing of International Breweries merger scheme of about 5.2 billion ordinary shares. This, according to him, buoyed NSE’s market capitalisation yesterday.

Dangote Cement topped the losers’ chart with a loss of 9.88 kobo to close at N230 per share. Flour Mills trailed with a loss of 3.32 to close at N30.87, while Lafarge Africa lost 1.00 kobo to close N44 per share.

National Salt declined by 69 kobo to close at N19.31, while Nigerian Breweries dipped 65 kobo to close at N139 per share.

Further analysis of yesterday’s transactions showed that Seplat recorded the highest gain to lead the gainers’ table with N38.74 kobo to close at N540.05 per share. Nestle garnered 1.55 kobo to close at N1454.05, while Julius Berger improved by 1.00 kobo to close at N28 per share.

Unilever rose by 40 kobo to close at N40.70 per share. GT Bank inched 10 kobo to close at N40 per share.

The volume of shares traded closed lower with a turnover of 289.30 million shares worth N6.22billion transacted in 4,617 deals. This was in contrast with the 323.95 million shares valued at N4.40billion traded in 5,168 deals on Wednesday.

On the activity chart, FBN Holdings was the most active with a total of 39.97 million shares worth N357.14million.