Transactions on the Nigerian equity market on Wednesday commenced the month of April on a downtrend as Unilever Nigeria Plc and Dangote Cement Plc lead other losers to close the day’s trading on the negative rout.

The market breadth closed negatively, recording 26 losers as against six gainers.

Consequently, the All-Share Index dropped by 199.93 basis points or 0.94 per cent from 21,300.47 index points the previous trading session to 21,100.54 while the market capitalisation of equities depreciated by N104bn to close at N10.996tn from N11.100tn.

On the activity chart, premium subsector dominated in volume terms with 77.4 million shares exchanged in 1,708 deals. The subsector was enhanced by the activities in the shares of Zenith Bank Plc and FBNH Plc.

Banking subsector boosted by the activities on the shares of Fidelity Plc and GTBank Plc followed with 35 million units traded in 649 deals.

In all, investors exchanged a total of 154.5 million shares exchanged in 3,415 deals.

Further analysis of the day’s trading showed that MTN Nigeria Plc led the gainers’ chart with 9.33 per cent to close at N98.40 per share while International Breweries Plc followed with 9.18 per cent to close at N3.35 per share and Livestock Feeds Plc with a gain of 8.47per cent to close at 64 kobo per share.

On the flip side, Unilever Nigeria Plc led the losers’ chart with a drop of 10 per cent to close at N9.90 per share. Dangote Cement Plc followed with a loss of 9.95 per cent to close at N116.80 per share while Guinness Nigeria Plc dropped by 9.92 per cent to close at N22.70 per share.