The persistent bearish performance of stocks at the Nigerian Stock Exchange in recent times has seen prices of large cap stocks decline rapidly dropping to one-year low levels and two-year low levels in some cases.

Stocks such as Dangote Cement Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and UBA Group Plc, which are seen as some of the highly-capitalised stocks on the NSE, have seen their share prices drop to bottom levels.

International Breweries Plc saw its share price drop to a one-year low level of N9.75 last week and maintained the position as the market conditions failed to improve significantly.

Also, the company has posted unimpressive performance in recent times.

International Breweries, which recorded a loss of N1.40bn in 2017, saw a decrease in its profitability as its losses intensified in 2018, totalling N3.87bn.

Fidelity Bank Plc saw its share price drop by 4.73 per cent on Wednesday to close at N1.61, close to a one-year low level of N1.40.

A one-year low level of N161 was recorded for Dangote Cement while its share price closed at N165.50 on Wednesday.

Other banking stocks such as Wema Bank Plc, Unity Bank Plc, GTB, FBN Holdings Plc and UBA also saw their share prices draw closer to respective one-year low levels of 50 kobo, 58 kobo, N25.70, N4.55 and N5.40.

Wema Bank’s share price closed at N58 kobo while Unity Bank recorded a marginal gain of 0.05 per cent to close at 65 kobo.

GTB and FBN Holdings saw their respective share prices shed 0.55 per cent and 3.03 per cent to close at N27 and N4.80.

UBA’s share price remained unchanged at N5.90 at the end of trading on Wednesday.

The market capitalisation of equities rose marginally by N3bn on Wednesday to N13.431tn from N13.428tn on Tuesday.

However, activity level was weak as volume and value traded fell by 29 per cent and 33.2 per cent, respectively to 130.372 million and N3.006bn.

The top traded stocks by volume were Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (39.1 million units), MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (15.3 million units) and Lafarge Africa Plc (10.4 million units) while MTN (N2.1bn), Lafarge (N147.7m) and Zenith Bank Plc (N140.1m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors was largely bullish as three indices closed positively.

The Insurance index led gainers, up by 2.25 per cent as investors took positions in Continental Reinsurance Plc, Wapic Insurance Plc and Lasaco Assurance Plc.

The industrial and oil and gas indices rose by one per cent and 0.86 per cent, respectively following buying interests in Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc, Lafarge Africa, Dangote Cement, Oando Plc and Forte Oil Plc.

The banking index lost the most, shedding 1.34 per cent on the back of losses in Zenith Bank, Access Bank Plc and FBN Holdings.

Sell-offs in PZ Cussons Plc and Honeywell Flour Mills Plc dragged the consumer goods index lower by 0.10 per cent.