Equities market opens the week on bearish note as all share index went down 73 basis points.
In yesterday’s trading session, the local bourse opened the week on a bearish note as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 73bps to settle at 29,521.90 points following losses in GUARANTY(-2.2%), STANBIC (-4.0%) and DANGCEM (-0.5%).
As a result, market capitalisation declined N82.4 billion to N11.1 trillion while year to date (YTD) loss worsened to -6.1%. However, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded advanced 18.7% and 40.4% to 290.2 million units and N2.2 billion respectively.
JAPAULOIL (56.6 million units), UBA (30.0 million units) and WEMABANK (25.3 million units) were the top traded stocks by volume while ZENITH (N241.2 million), UBA (N205.6 million) and NESTLE (N159.5 million) led the top traded stock by value.
The sector performance was mixed albeit bearish as 3 out of 5 indices under our coverage closed in the red. The Industrial Goods index led decliners, down 2.9% following losses in CCNN (-9.7%) and DANGCEM (-0.5%).
Similarly, the Banking index depreciated 1.2% on the back of sell pressures in GUARANTY (-2.2%), STANBIC (-4.0%) and ZENITH (-1.2%).
Also, in the Oil & Gas index shed 1.1% due to price depreciation in TOTAL (-8.7%) and OANDO (-5.7%). On the flip side, the Insurance index led gainers, up 1.6% due to buying interest in NEM (+7.5%) and CUSTODIAN (+1.6%) while gains in DANGFLOUR (+9.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.5%) drove the Consumer Goods index higher by 0.3%.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.0x from 0.9x last Friday as 25 stocks gained against 26 losers. The best performing stocks were DANGFLOUR (+9.9%), NEIMETH (+9.8%) and CUTIX (+9.6%) while OKOMUOIL(-10.0%), UNIONDICON (-9.7%) and PREMPAINTS (-9.6%) led laggards.
“Following the losses sustained on fundamentally sound stocks, we expect bargain hunting in subsequent sessions buoyed by the improving investor sentiment and the first quarter 2019 earnings reports, to drive positive market performance in the near term”, Afrinvest said.
