Stocks Tumble N47 bln as Santa Claus Escaped
Nigerian stocks tumble more than N47 billion in the just concluded week as Santa Claus escape from the local bourse. For the most part of the week, the Nigerian Exchange had traded negative as equity investors booked profit.
Consequently, the NGX All-Share Index declined 0.2% week on week to settle at 42,262.85 points, thus, underperforming an expectation of a positive close. Read Also: Unimpressive Yields Could Fuel Santa Claus Rally on Nigerian…
Accordingly, year to date return fell to 4.9% from 5.2% in the previous week while market capitalisation dropped ₦47.2 billion weeks on week to ₦22.1 trillion, according to Afrinvest note.
Analysts note indicated that activity level weakened as average volume and value traded shed 26.2% and 18.8% week on week to 193.0 million units and ₦2.5 billion respectively.
UACN was the top traded stock by volume at 218.3 million units, FBNH transacted 95.5 million units and SOVRENINS 51.1 million units.
Leading the value chart, UACN traded ₦2.0 billion, MTNN ₦1.3 billion, and NESTLE ₦1.2 billion. Afrinvest noted that performance was bullish across sectors within the firm’s coverage as 4 of 6 indicators gained.
Buying interest in SOVRENINS (+8.3%), REGALINS (+4.9%), PZ (+7.2%), and VITAFOAM (+4.4%) drove the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices up 1.8% and 0.8% week on week respectively.
Also, the Industrial Goods and Banking indices closed the week higher by 0.4% and 0.1% respectively on the back of gains in MEYER (+9.3%), CUTIX (+9.2%), UNITYBNK (+6.7%), and FIDELITY (+3.2%).
Meanwhile, AFR-ICT and Oil & Gas indices declined -1.2% and -0.5% week on week respectively due to selling pressure in MTNN (-2.3%), ETERNA (-4.3%), and OANDO (-2.1%).
Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, strengthened to 1.3x from 1.1x recorded last week as 31 stocks gained against 23 losers, according to market data.
The top performing stocks for the week were MBENEFIT (+23.1%), UBN (+20.7%), and ROYALEX (+11.6%) while JBERGER (-9.9%), MRSOIL (-9.9%), and CORNERST (-9.8%) were the top underperforming stocks.
In the last trading week of the year, Afrinvest is expecting the market to extend this week’s negative performance as investors rebalance their portfolios.#Stocks Tumble N47 bln as Santa Claus Escaped
