The local stock market continued its bearish trend on Wednesday, marking the third consecutive day of closing in the red zone.

The All-Share Index and the market capitalisation shed 0.04 per cent to close at 98,023.23 points and N59.39tn, respectively, as investors lost N22bn.

Analysts blamed sell-offs by investors for the negative trading batter on the Nigerian Exchange Limited.

Despite the downturn, 33 stocks registered gains, while 23 recorded losses.

Leading the gainers were the trio of UPL, VitaFoam and  Sky Aviation, which gained 10 per cent each to close at N3.08, N22 and N27.50, respectively.

On the decliners chart were PZ Cussons and Jaiz Bank, which shed 10 per cent of their share value to close at N18.90 and N2.25 each, while ABC Transport lost 9.63 per cent to close at N1.22.

The sectoral performance was mixed, with banking (+1.73per cent), oil/gas (+0.22per cent), and industrial goods (+0.24 per cent) sectors seeing gains, while the insurance and consumer goods sectors dipped by 0.71 per cent and 0.11 per cent, respectively.

Trading activity was positive as the number of deals, traded volume and value increased by 5.04 per cent in deals, 34.97 per cent in volume and 71.43 per cent in value.

In total, 538.96 million shares were traded across 10,028 deals, amounting to N15.30bn with Jaiz Bank leading in volume, trading 106 million units valued at N241m over 211 deals.

Bargain hunting activities had wiped N394bn from investors’ pockets on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, at the foreign exchange market, the naira depreciated by 0.04 per cent, closing at 1,631.17 per dollar at the official market.

In the parallel market, the local currency closed at 1,745 to the dollar.