Nigerian Bourse Falls as Investors Rebalance Portfolios
The Nigerian stock market falls by about N73 billion on Tuesday as equity investors offloaded large and mid-cap stocks including Nigerian Breweries and Lafarge WAPCO shares among others.
Stockbrokers told MarketForces Africa that they expect the equity segment of the Nigerian Exchange to experience portfolios rebalancing after the benchmark interest rate hike by the Central Bank of Nigeria last week that triggered spot rates repricing in the fixed income market.
Consequent to the fresh catalyst (interest rate hike) that is driving yields upward in the debt capital market, the Nigerian equities market settled lower for the second day in the new week.
Apart from selling rallies, there was a markdown in the top cement player — DANGCEM’s share price, thus reducing the equity market capitalisation to N28.9 trillion, representing a N72.8 billion dropped off from the previous close.
Trading data from the local bourse shows that the Nigerian Exchange All-Share Index dipped by 1.5% on Tuesday to 52,990.28 points, resulting in moderation in market returns which had peaked at 26.6% last week Friday.
The month-to-date and year-to-date returns track lower at +6.8% and +24.1%, respectively, stockbrokers said in a market report. The total volume traded decreased by 98.9% to 318.28 million units, valued at N3.71 billion, and exchanged in 5,190 deals.
TRANSCORP was the most traded stock by volume at 86.74 million units, while MTNN was the most traded stock by value at N1.64 billion, according to trading data cited by stockbrokers.
Sectoral performance was broadly negative, as the Industrial Goods (-3.6%), Consumer Goods (-1.8%), Oil & Gas (-0.8%), Banking (-0.2%), and Insurance (-0.1%) indices closed lower.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.2x) as 19 tickers gained relative to 16 losers. TRANSCOHOT (+6.8%) and CHAMPION (+5.1%) topped the gainers’ list, while NB (-10.0%) and NNFM (-9.8%) recorded the most significant losses of the day. # Nigerian Bourse Falls as Investors Rebalance Portfolios
