After Hitting Intra-Day High Of 43,670.57bps

As forewarned by Investdata analysts, the composite All-Share index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) turned red at 2pm Friday, as the indexes bowed to profit taking pressure, which turned to panic selling.
The market opened green and stayed so all through the morning session into the afternoon within which time it attained an intra-day high of 43,670.57, representing about 500 points gain above its opening level of 43,041.54bp.
By 2.10pm, the index was down 254.04 basis points or 0.59% at 42,787.50; which was better than its low of 42,670.97.
The NSEASI closed the day with minor last minute improvements that were not enough to return it to the green territories. At market close, the index was down 142.64bps or 0.33% at 42,898.90.
The drag came from Seplat Petroleum Development Company, had barely 30 minutes to market close was N24.99 up, before caving in; ahead of Total Nigeria; Skye
Shelter; Presco; and Beta Glass; pushing Nigerian Breweries, the exchange’s biggest stock by market capitalization (behind Dangote Cement), which had lost N7.95 from the top five decliners; just as Lafarge Africa’s N2.85 slide. Conoil had shed N2.04; International Breweries, N2.00; and Unilever Nigeria, N1.97 per share.
The losses made a mess of juicy gains by Nestle Nigeria that increased its N9.59 rise to N39.54 in a matter of minutes; just as Double One increased its tally from N4.04 30 minutes earlier to N9; ahead of the N3.78 by Guinness Nigeria. Stanbic IBTC could not muster enough strength to do better than the N2.14 gain accumulated earlier; while Chemical & Allied Products chalked 1.72 each
Transaction volume at the close of trading was 1.394bn shares worth N14.236bn in 11.304 deals; while market capitalization stood at N15.317tr.
Transnational Corporation of Nigeria was most traded equity with 222.903m shares in 720 deals; followed by 153.459m units of Diamond Bank in 633 deals; while FCMB’s 112.2369m shares were crossed in 599 deals.