On Wednesday, the Nigerian equities market closed lower at the midweek session as profit-taking by investors triggered a mild pullback.

Specifically the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 0.13 percent to settle at 145,865.48 basis points.

The market downturn was largely driven by selloffs in Lafarge Africa, Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust Holding Company, having dipped by 2.14 percent, 1.96 percent and 1.31 percent, respectively.

This downturn erased N121 billion from the market’s capitalisation, which closed at N92.28 trillion.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to +4.3 percent and +41.7 per cent, respectively.Despite the overall dip, market breadth turned positive with 53 gainers against 21 losers, reflecting sustained buying interest from bargain hunters even amid profit-taking pressure.

On the performance board, Caverton Offshore Support Group and FTN Cocoa Processor led the gainers with respective 10 percent increase in share value, while Thomas Wyatt and UAC Nigeria Property Development Company recorded the most significant losses of the day having dipped in share value by 10 per cent and 7.9 percent, respectively.

On sectors, performance was mixed as the Consumer Goods, Banking and Industrial Goods indices declined by 0.9 percent, 0.5 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively; while the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices advanced by 7.9 per cent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

Market activity presented a mixed picture—while trading volume rose by 5.06 percent to 1.34 billion units, turnover and the number of deals fell by 16.65 percent and 1.30 percent, closing at N20.22 billion and 30,749 transactions, respectively.

Universal Insurance dominated the volume chart with 193.43million units exchanged, while Access Holdings led the value board, posting N2.35 billion worth of trades.

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