Equities Market Plunged ₦46.1 billion as Profit-taking Persists

Stocks prices declined ₦46.1 billion Thursday amidst a profit-taking mood that has persisted for the second day.

Bear returned to the Nigerian Stock Exchange yesterday, halted a 14-day straight uptrend on account of the movement of funds as yields in fixed income plunged further.

Sell pressures continued Thursday due to sustained profit-taking, dragging the All-Share index lower by 31 basis points (bps) to 28,546.22 points.

This was driven by price depreciation in some highly capitalised stocks like DANGCEM which lost 4.8%, NIGERIAN BREWERIES shares plunged 7.1% and BUACEMENT fell by 0.8%.

As a result, investors lost ₦46.1 billion as market capitalisation fell to ₦14.9 trillion while year to date returns weakened to 6.3%.

Meanwhile, the activity level waned as volume and value traded fell by 31.6% and 48.5% to 569.4m units and ₦4.9 billion respectively.

The most traded stocks by volume were ETERNA (112.9m units), ZENITH (74.2m units) and ACCESS (57.1m units) while ZENITH (₦1.5bn), GUARANTY (₦578.7m) and ACCESS (₦449.2m) led by value.

Performance across sectors was mixed as 3 of 6 indices under Afrinvest coverage gained.

The Banking and Insurance indices gained the most, up 2.9% and 1.3% respectively due to bargain hunting in GUARANTY (+3.2%), ZENITH (+2.8%) and MANSARD (+7.1%).

Trailing, the AFR-ICT index appreciated 1.1%, following buy interest in AIRTELAF (+2.5%).

Conversely, the Industrial and Consumer Goods indices declined 2.7% and 1.3% respectively, on the back of sell pressures in DANGCEM (-4.8%), BUACEMENT (-0.8%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-7.1%).

Likewise, profit-taking in OANDO (-2.6%), CONOIL (-5.6%) and ARDOVA (-2.7%), dragged the Oil & Gas index lower by 0.5%.

Thus, investor sentiment as measured by market breadth rose to 1.5x from the 0.7x recorded in the previous session as 26 stocks gained against 17 decliners.

ETERNA (+10.0%), UNILEVER (+9.8%) and ETI (+8.5%) gained the most while DEAPCAP (-10.0%), MBENEFIT (-8.7%) and CORNERSTONE (-8.3%) led the laggards.

“We expect the equities market to close the week positive due to strong buying interest”, Afrinvest stated.