MTN Nigeria, Flour Mills and Zenith Bank triggered the decline even though transaction volume improved by 48 per cent and turnover by 4 per cent.
Nigerian stocks were 0.35 per cent weaker on Tuesday, extending the slide that started at the previous trading session as profit-taking actions in some big-cap shares weighed.
MTN Nigeria, Flour Mills and Zenith Bank triggered the decline even though transaction volume improved by 48 per cent and turnover by 4 per cent.
"We expect profit-taking in some names on the back of generally strong market performance in the previous weeks," analysts at investment bank ARM Securities said in their outlook for this week.
Market breadth was negative as 27 losers emerged in contrast to 21 gainers. The rest 70 participating stocks saw no price movement.
Depreciating by 187.5 points, the all-share index closed at 52,756.62, while market capitalisation fell to N28.4 trillion.
Year to date, the index is up by 23.5 per cent.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
PZ Cussons led gainers, growing by 9.96 per cent to close at N13.25. Berger gained 9.70 per cent to close at N7.90. NNFM rose by 9.63 per cent to N11.95.
McNichols leapt to N1.61, notching up 9.52 per cent in the process. Abbey Building Society completed the top 5, climbing up by 9.49 per cent to N1.50.
TOP FIVE LOSERS
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Flour Mills topped losers, declining by 9.20 per cent to close at N37. GSK shrank by 8.39 per cent to end the day at N6.55.
NPF Microfinance Bank dropped to N1.95, losing 8.02 per cent. Japaul Gold dipped to N0.30, recording 6.25 per cent loss. Champion Breweries closed at N3.70, going down by 6.09 per cent.
TOP 5 TRADES
In all, 1.3 billion shares worth N7.7 billion were traded in 6,449 deals.
Jaiz was the most preferred stock, trading 172.1 million shares worth N151.8 million in 141 deals.
Transact traded 140.1 million units estimated at N202.1 million in 390 transactions. GTCO had 50.4 million shares valued at N1.2 billion traded in 376 deals.
International Breweries traded 21 million shares estimated at N165.1 million in 192 transactions. Sovereign Trust traded 13.9 million shares valued at N3.9 million in 20 deals.
