Stocks slide as profit-taking persists

Sell pressures continued at the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange as sustained profit-taking dragged the All-Share index lower by 31bps to 28,546.22 points.

This was driven by price depreciation in Dangote Cement (-4.8 per cent), Nigerian Breweries (-7.1%) and BUA Cement (-0.8%).

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As a result, investors lost ₦46.1 billion as market capitalisation fell to ₦14.9 trillion while year to date return weakened to 6.3%.

Activity level waned as volume and value traded fell by 31.6% and 48.5% to 569.4 million units and ₦4.9bn respectively.

The most traded stocks by volume were Eterna (112.9m units), Zenith (74.2m units) and Access (57.1m units) while Zenith (₦1.5bn), Guaranty (₦578.7m) and Access (₦449.2m) led by value.