Equities Market Sheds N149bn in 4:1 Bear-Bull Fight
The equities segment of the Nigerian Exchange sheds about N149 billion in four to one bears-bulls fight, according to trading data for last week. Investors sentiment remained weak as fixed income market yields inched forward.
Institutional investors, Pension Funds among others are moving funds into the debt capital market to maintain balance portfolio profiles as the fixed income market becomes healthier for risk-averse institutional investors.
Average yields across Nigerian Treasury bills inched upward to above 8%, a level seen before the pandemic break and traders are saying that yield will rise further as government raise more funds – given that the benchmark interest rate has inched to 14%.
In their market note, stockbrokers said weak investors’ sentiments continue to dampen the performance of the stock market for the second straight week. According to data from the Nigerian bourse, the benchmark index dipped 0.56% in the just concluded week on the back of pressured sell-offs in heavyweight companies’ stocks.
Cowry Asset Management said in a market note that equities investors continue to cherry-pick after Tuesday’s dead-cat bounce. Also, the NGX market capitalisation tumbled to N26.64 trillion from N26.79 trillion in the prior week while the year-to-date market return eased further to 15.62%.
Investors lost N148.99 billion from 4 out of 5 sessions, according to data from the Nigerian stock market cited by stockbrokers. The uninspiring performance was broad-based as price declines in JAPAULGOLD, PZ Cussons, Honeywell Flour, NEM Insurance, and Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) pulled back the local bourse from making a trajectory.
During the week, the top losers were Japaul Gold shed 24% of its opening market value, PZ shed 17%, HONYFLOUR lost 14%, NEM insurance share was priced down 13%, and FLOURMILL declined by 10%. READ: NGX Sheds Weight as Equities Investors Dump Banks Shares
As a result, NGX Insurance was down by 1.40% and NGX Consumer Goods dropped by 1.03% while NGX Industrial Goods slowdown 0.87%. The NGX Banking (+0.65%) and NGX Oil and Gas (+0.28%) Indexes recorded weekly gains from price appreciation.
The level of trading activity during the week closed mixed as the total traded volume decreased 47.5% week on week to 792.94 million units. Meanwhile, the total weekly traded value rose by 93.99% to N11.9 billion and total deals for the week dipped (-17.40%) to 16,861 from 20,412 last week
Projecting to this week, stockbrokers said they expect market performance to remain mixed. Investors are expected to rotate their portfolios towards stocks with attractive dividend yields. # Equities Market Sheds N149bn in 4:1 Bear-Bull Fight
