Airtel, Stanbic Selloffs Drag Equities Market N500bn Lower
Equities investors lost about N500 billion at the start of the new week due to selling pressures on Airtel Africa, Stanbic IBTC, Transcorp, Nigerian Breweries and 14 other stocks. As a result of negative trades, the Nigerian All-Share Index declined by 89 basis points, closing at 98,703.68 points, up from the previous session’s 99,587.25 points.
The market’s negative performance was primarily driven by selling pressure in stocks such as AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%), STANBIC (-2.80%), TRANSCORP (-3.55%), NB (-4.30 %), and 14 others. GUINEAINS (+10.00%) led the winners in today’s session, while AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) led the losers. This dragged the year-to-date return back to 32.00%, racing behind an annual inflation rate of 33.20%.
Market activities ended on a mixed note. Stockbrokers observed that the volume traded declined by 5.56% to close at 421.73 million units while the value traded (N8.95 billion) increased by 26.10%. ACCESSCORP led the volume and value chart with 98.24 million units traded (23.29% of total volume) at a total value of N1.76 billion (19.7% of total value traded).
The market witnessed buying interest in banking names amidst a solid Q1 earnings performance. Gainers include GTCO (+7.61%), FBNH (+4.63%), ACCESSCORP (+3.16%), UBA (+0.78%), and ZENITH (+0.58%).
Sectoral performance was bullish, according to data from the local bourse. The data showed that out of the five indices, three closed positive. The banking index rose by +2.56%, and the insurance index popped up by 2.03%. Consumer goods gained 0.58%, followed by a 0.25% uptick in the industrial goods index.
The key indices gained reflected investors’ interest in GTCO (+7.61%), CORNERST (+10%), DANGSUGAR (+8.30%), and WAPCO (+6.54%), respectively. On the other hand, the oil and gas index closed flat.
Overall, the equities market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange declined by N499.71 billion to close at N55.82 trillion. #Airtel, Stanbic Selloffs Drag Equities Market N500bn Lower
