Equities market of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) started out the new trading week with a somewhat lackluster performance. At the close of the day, the benchmark indices of the All-Share Index and market capitalisation dipped 0.2 percent apiece.

The ASI closed at 43,056.51 having dropped 111.35 absolute points from 43,167.86 points, while market value closed at N15.402 trillion after investors’ lost N105 billion from N15.507 trillion the market commenced trading for the week.

Market breadth suggested some underlying weakness to the day’s trading session, as decliners outpaced advancers on the nation’s bourse. Trading figures showed 34 stocks recording loss as against 19 stocks on the gainers’ table, a reflection of depressive market outlook.

The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalized stocks, amongst which are; UBA (-4.65%), Cadbury (-4.35%), UBN (-4.23%), Unilever (-2.25%), FBNH (-1.30%), Dangflour (-0.93%) Guinness (-0.90) Guaranty (-0.31) and Nestle (-0.07%).

Gainers on the other hand, led by Total Oil Nigeria Plc (+1.69%), Dangote Sugar was up (+3.78%), Nigerian Breweries Plc added (+0.39%), UACN gained (+2.57%) and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (+1.01) per share.

The Exchange noted on Monday that the entire share capital of Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc (“SBC”) was delisted from the Daily Official List of the NSE on Friday, 5 March 2018. The delisting of the entire issued share capital of SBC followed its shareholders’ approval of a Scheme of Arrangement to restructure and delist from the Exchange.

A total of 400,000,632 units of FBN holdings were executed as an off-market trade yesterday at N12.50 in two deals. These deals were negotiated deals between Cordros Securities Limited (buyer) and Fundvine Capital & Securities Limited (seller). This led to the difference in the percentage of ASI and market capitalization.

In all, 831 million shares were bought and sold at N10.57 billion exchanged hands in 5,651 deals.