Investors anticipated that the average cost of goods and services would decline in February as a result of Nigerians cutting back on spending in January due to a lack of cash. However, when the statistics office released the inflation figures, the rate had increased by 21.91% from the 21.82% recorded in January 2023.
The banking sector, which closed lower by 1.95 percent while the consumer goods and industrial goods sectors fell by 0.29 percent and 0.01 percent respectively, provided support for the decline.
As the energy counter ended flat, the insurance index increased by 0.44 percent.
The All-Share Index (ASI) dropped by 232.70 points, to 55,490.20 points from 55,722.90 points, as a result of the ongoing selling pressure, while the market capitalization fell by N127 billion, to N30.229 trillion from N30.356 trillion.
In comparison to the 199.3 million shares worth N2.8 billion traded in 3,898 deals during the previous session, a total of 181.2 million shares worth N3.4 billion were transacted in 3,908 deals during the midweek session, showing a decline in trading volume of 9.08%, an increase in trading value of 21.43%, and an improvement in the number of deals of 0.26 %.
The most active stock during the session was GTCO, which exchanged 33.9 million units, followed by Transcorp with 20.1 million, Zenith Bank with 18.6 million, Flour Mills with 18.5 million, and UBA with 15.2 million.
The session’s biggest losers included United Capital, which dropped 9.30% to N11.70, University Press, which dropped 7.50% to N1.85, GSK, which dropped 7.46% to N6.20, Neimeth, which dropped 7.01% to N1.46, and Oando, which dropped 6.74% to N4.01.
Prestige Assurance, which increased by 7.89% to 41 Kobo, Veritas Kapital, which increased by 5.00% to 21 Kobo, NGX Group, which increased by 4.87% to N28.00, Unilever Nigeria, which increased by 3.70% to N14.00, and Japaul, which increased by 3.57% to 29 Kobo, all had gains yesterday.
Since the market breadth finished negatively with 19 price losers and 11 price losers, The News Chronicles writes that investor mood remained low on Wednesday.
