TheCable

The market capitalisation of shares belonging to MTN Nigeria on the Nigerian Stock Exchange dropped by N30.5 billion at the end of the trading on Wednesday.

MTN’s shares, which opened at N140 per share, lost N1.50 to close at N138.50.

The telecommunications company, which is Nigeria’s largest, announced in a statement on Wednesday that all its offices and service centres will be closed till further notice to avoid reprisal attacks on its facilities.

There have been attacks and demonstrations at MTN offices to protest violence being carried out against Nigerians living in South Africa.

In total, the market capitalisation which opened at N13.420 trillion lost N130 billion to close at N13.290 trillion.

In the same vein, the all-share index (ASI) dipped 267.15 points to 27,319.64 compared with 27,586.79 achieved on Tuesday.

The downturn was impacted by losses recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, among which are Nestle Nigeria, Guinness Nigeria, Dangote Cement, Forte Oil and MTN Nigeria.

At the close of trading, there were 10 gainers against 18 losers.

Guinness dominated the losers’ chart with a loss of 9.90% to close at N37.30 per share.

Ikeja Hotel followed with a decline of 9.79% to close at N1.29, while Forte Oil declined by 9.73% to close at N14.85 per share.

UPDC Real Estate Investment Trust lost 9.26% to close at N4.90, while Eterna shed 5.36% to close at N2.65 per share.

Conversely, UACN recorded the highest price gain of 9.89%, to close at N5 per share.

The total volume traded fell by 14.93% as investors bought and sold 250.45 million shares valued at N3.19 billion in 3,219 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 294.41 million shares worth N3.49 billion traded in 3,337 deals, Tuesday.

Transactions in the shares of Access Bank topped the activity chart with 81.85 million shares valued at N542.31 million.