By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday succumbed to profit-taking after three (3) consecutive days of gains, the bulls came to a halt in today’s session, according to a Cordros market update.

At the end of today’s session on the floor of the Nigerian bourse, all-share index (ASI) declined by 1.55 percent to close at 30,869.17 points, while market capitalisation decreased by N162.21 billion to close at N 10.30 trillion.

With this development, current Year-to-Date (Y-t-D) returns at the Nigerian equities market stands at a negative 10.93 percent.

“All of the NSE Sectoral indices lost. The Banking index recorded the worst performance with a 2.90 percent plunge, while the Consumer Goods and Oil/Gas indices followed suit with -2.18 percent and -1.87 percent respectively,2 the Cordros report affirmed.

In the same vein, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices also depreciated by 0.71 percent and 0.41 percent respectively.

At the end of transactions, market breadth at the NSE closed on a negative note, as 19 gainers and 30 losers were recorded, compared to yesterday’s 26 and 18, respectively. UBA Capital Plc emerged top gainer with a gain of 0.15 kobo; while fast consumer moving goods firm Honeywell Flour Mills Plc led the losers chart with a loss of 0.14 kobo.

In terms of turnover, volume traded on the Nigerian equities market declined by 1.89 percent to 518.88 million shares, valued at 3.85 billion and traded in 5,469 deals.

“The market is likely to rebound in tomorrow session, as investors, bearing in mind some pending corporate results, price stocks higher from today’s levels,” the Cordros update affirmed.