THE equities market trading on the first day of March begins on a weak note as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 0.58 per cent on Tuesday to close at 25,183.10 points as against previous sessions closing figure of 25,329.08 points.
Market capitalisation settled at N8.715 trillion following a loss of N50.5 billion as market breadth closed with eight gaining stocks against 19 stocks that declined.
Vita foam emerged the day’s highest gainer with a growth of 4.65 percent to close at N1.80, NPF Microfinance Bank was next with 4.46 per cent increase to close at N1.17 while Seplat added 3.09 percent to close at N400.
In contrast to the day’s top three gainers, Cadbury emerged the highest loser for the day with a loss of 8.77 percent to close at N7.80 per cent, Guinness lost 4.96 percent to close at N62.11 while FCMB dropped 4.88 percent to close at N1.17
Zenith Bank was the most actively traded stock with 81.7 million shares valued at N1.2 billion, UBA followed with 27.3 million shares at N135.8 million, United Capital was next with 22.6 million units with total value at N78.7 million, NEM Insurance was the day’s fourth most traded stock with 16.6 million shares at N13.4 million while Guaranty traded 12.7 million shares worth N312.7 million.
A turnover of 228 million shares worth N2.4 billion were traded in 2,958 deals by investors on the first trading session in the month of March in contrast to 444.5 million shares valued at N3.6 billion in 3336 deals traded on Monday.
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