Profit taking dragged the Nigerian stock market down today as the price of many stocks declined by the maximum 10% allowed in a trading day. Most hit by the price decline are insurance stocks which have been the toast of investors for over a week now at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).

Market sentiment was negative as 48 stocks declined in price while 22 stocks gained. Leading the losers’ table are Lassaco Assurance, Sovereign Trust Insurance, UPDC, C & I Leasing and Wema Bank which went down by 10% apiece.  The share price of most of the insurance companies, including AIICO, Consolidated Hallmark, Cornerstone, Custodian, Guinea, International Energy, AXA Mansard, Mutual Benefits, Prestige, Regal, Royal Exchange, Coronation, Veritas, declined by 10%.

Price loss by big caps such as Dangote Sugar (-7.9%), Transcorp (-2.3%) and Seplat Energy (-1.3%) helped to weigh down the Nigerian bourse. Consequently, the All Share Index (ASI) ended the session 0.4% lower to 145,300.01 points with the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderating to +3.9% and +41.2%, respectively.

The total volume traded advanced by 83.0% to 2.46 billion units valued at NGN22.22 billion, and exchanged in 43,515 deals. Universal Insurance was the most traded stock by volume at 390.40 million units, while Nigerian Breweries was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.87 billion.

Sectoral performance was broadly negative as the Insurance index went down -8.3%; Banking, -0.5%; Consumer Goods, -0.2%; and Oil & Gas, -0.1%; while the Industrial Goods index advanced by 0.1%.