Dealers at the Nigerian Stock Exchange

Activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday resumed on a bearish note after the public holiday with  market capitalization market capitalisation which opened for the week  at N9.928 trillion losing N428 billion or 4.3 per cent to close at N9.500 trillion.

Also, the All-Share Index dropped 1,239.09 points or 4.3 per cent to close at 27,663.16 compared with 28,902.25 achieved on Friday.

Market analysts attributed the development to profit taking embarked upon by fund managers to balance their accounts for May.

A breakdown of the price movement chart indicated that major blue chips recorded price depreciation with Forte Oil leading the pack, dropping by N10.31 to close at N195.90 per share.

Dangote Cement came second with a loss of N8.12 to close at N167.01 while the Nigerian Breweries lost 70k to close at N135 per share.

Lafarge Africa declined by N6.44 to close at N76.57 and Guinness shed N5.49 to close at N104.32 per share.

Conversely, Glaxosmithkline led the gainers’ table with 50k to close at N21 per share.

Etranzact followed with a gain of 45k to close at N5.46 while UPL increased by 22k to close at N4.64 per share.

Trans Express Nationwide also improved by 14k to close at N1.66 and Continental Reinsurance added 5k to close at N1.15 per share.

Fidelity Bank recorded the highest volume of activities, trading 75.11 million shares worth N99.89 million.

The FBN Holdings followed with an exchange of 70.01 million shares valued at N277.63 million while Access Bank traded 24.32 million shares worth N137.94 million.

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated sold 22.98 million shares valued at N376.74 million and Transcorp exchanged 17.77 million shares worth N23.31 million.

In all, investors staked N3.15 billion on 335.06 million shares transacted in 4,301 deals.

This was against the 621.45 million shares valued at N2.81 billion exchanged in 5,802 deals on Friday.