Transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ended on Friday on a bearish trend as the market capitalisation depreciated by N97 billion or 0.76 per cent following the price losses recorded by some major stocks.

Yesterday, the stocks lost N260 billion, in perhaps the greatest day of loss in recent years.

The market capitalisation closed lower at N12.612 trillion from the N12.709 trillion recorded on Thursday.

Also, the All-Share Index, which opened at 38,490.67, dropped by 292.94 points to close at 38,197.73.

Seplat led the losers’ chart by N28.85 to close at N548.31 per share.

Mobil Oil followed, depreciating by N8.2 to close at N165.8, while Lafarge Wapco lost N5.79 to close at N111.06 per share.

Nigerian Breweries dipped by N4.55 to close at N165.45, while Dangote Cement decreased by N3 to close at N212 per share.

On the other hand, Forte Oil led the gainers’ chart by N8.8 to close at N215.9 per share.

Stanbic IBTC gained N1 to close at N31, while FBN Holdings grew by 8k to close at N11.8 per share.

Zenith Bank appreciated by 32k to close at N21.4, while Diamond Bank chalked up 27k to close at N5.84 per share.

Access Bank emerged as the most traded stock, accounting for 71.78 million shares worth N592.48 million.

Fidelity Bank followed with an exchanged 52.31 million shares valued at N102.02 million, while Transcorp sold 48.41 million shares worth N221.56 million

ETI traded 28.30 million shares valued at N516.89 million, while FBN Holdings transacted 24.04 million shares worth N277.19 million.

In all, the volume of shares traded decreased by 30.83 per cent as investors exchanged a total of 362.564 million shares worth N3.86 billion in 4,846 deals.

This was against the 524.220 million shares valued at N7.66 billion traded in 4,779 deals on Thursday