By Providence Obuh

The bearish trend on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, continued Wednesday, as the indices for measuring the performance and value of listed equities, the market capitalisation and All-share index, both dipped by 0.85 per cent each.

In particular, the capitalisation dropped by N66.68 billion to close at N7.755 trillion from N7.822 trillion at which it opened while the index shed 208.55 bases points to close at 24,256.97 points from 24,465.52 points.

Nigerian Breweries Plc led 30 other stocks on the losers table dropping by 2.22 per cent or N2.00 to close at N88.00 per share, Conoil Plc followed with a loss of N1.80 to close at N34.30 per share and Custodian and Allied Product Plc dipped by N1.78 to close at N34.22 per share.

Other share price losers include: PZ Cussons Plc N1.19, Dangote Cement Plc N.00, Oando Plc N1.00, Lafarge Cement Wapco Plc N1.00, Ecobank Transnational Incorporation Plc N0.57, Berger Paints Plc N0.52, Nigeria Aviation Handling Company Plc N0.40, among others.

On the contrary, Diamond Bank Plc led on the gainers table rising by 4.63 per cent or N0.23 to close at N5.20 per share, Capital Hotel Plc followed with a gain of N0.19 to close at N4.04 per share and Abbey Building Society Plc garnered N0.06 to close at N1.43 per share.

Other share price gainers include: C&I L easing Plc N0.04, Unity Bank Plc N0.04, NEM Insurance Plc N0.02, Union Homes Savings and Loans Plc N0.02, First Bank Plc n0.02, Japaul Oil and Maritime Services Plc N0.01, Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc N0.01, among others.

A turnover of 425.83 million shares valued at N2.40 billion was recorded in 5,676 deals, as trading appreciated by 60.81 per cent, in contrast to the previous day’s turnover of 264.80 million shares valued at N2.86 billion in 6,089 deals.

The Banking sub-sector dominated the other sub-sectors on the sectorial analysis accounting for 178.56 million shares valued at N1.422 billion in 2,995 deals.

Diamond Bank Plc was the most sought after in the sub-sector trading 46.36 million shares valued at N232.06 million in 72 deals, Zenith Bank Plc followed with the exchange of 43.36 million shares valued at N641.59 million in 299 deals and Access Bank Plc recorded 19.67 million shares valued at N133.59 million in 208 deals.