Investors’ wealth decline as sell-offs in bellwethers drag Index. The Nigerian equity market www.nse.com.ng today shed 0.09% to further extended downtrend to four consecutive trading sessions.
The decline was driven by price depreciation in Cornerstone Insurance, and 17 other stocks.
At the close of trade, losses in ACCESS (-2.7%), FBNH (-2.2%) and GUARANTY (-9.1%) dragged the All-Share Index (ASI) down to 26,913.70 point.
Meanwhile, year to date loss worsened to -14.4% as market capitalisation fell N12.0 billion to N12.9 trillion.
Activity level strengthened as volume and value traded rose 83.1% and 164.2% to 206.7 million units and N2.8 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were UACN (40.2 million units), ACCESS (28.3 million units) and GUARANTY (27.7 million units) while GUARANTY (N837.7 million), ZENITH (N484.6 million) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N435.3 million) led the value chart.
Sector performance was bearish as 3 of 6 indices under Afrinvest analysts’ coverage closed negative while the AFR-ICT index remained flat.
The Consumer and Industrial Goods indices gained 3.8% and 1bps respectively, following buying interest in DANGSUGAR (+5.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+9.2%) and CUTIX (+4.1%).
Conversely, sell pressures in MANSARD (-8.3%), WAPIC (-7.7%) and LAWUNION (-7.7%) dragged the Insurance index down 2.5%.
Likewise, the Banking and Oil & Gas indices closed southward, down 70bps and 3bps respectively, due to declines in ACCESS (-2.7%), FBNH (-2.2%), GUARANTY (-9.1%) and OANDO (-0.3%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) declined to 0.4x from 1.2x recorded from the previous trading session as 8 stocks advanced against 19 decliners.
The best performing stocks were CHAMS (+9.9%), UNIONDAC (+9.2%) and DANGSUGAR (+8.6%) while CORNERSTONE (-9.1%), MEDVIEWAIR (-8.7%) and ARBICO (-8.5%) led the laggards.
“We expect the bearish performance to be sustained in the near term, barring the occurrence of a major catalyst in the market”, Afrinvest stated.
email: Editor@dmarketforces.com
