Equity market sinks to ₦11.505 trillion amid COVID-19 Bouts
As Nigerians are becoming apprehensive following an increase in reported cases of COVID-19, the equity market plunged as year to date losses widen.
At the close of trading on Thursday, the Nigerian Stock Exchange returned to the negative.
The All-Share Index (ASI) declined 2.9% to 22,118.90 points.
Investors recorded gains on Wednesday following an improved market sentiment and good pricing.
Stock market tanked due to 4.9% price depreciation MTNN, 3.4% in NESTLE and 10% value knock out in ZENITH.
Consequently, year to date return worsened to -17.6% with market capitalisation pulling off ₦350 billion from opening value to ₦11.505 trillion.
Equity analysts saw activity level to dropped off as volume and value traded sank 21.7% and 55.2% to 525.9 million units and ₦4.7 billion in that order.
The most active stocks by volume were ZENITH which traded 118.5 m units, WAPIC 100.4 million units and GUARANTY 100.7 million units.
GUARANTY transactions attracted ₦1.8 billion ZENITH ₦1.4 billion and NESTLE ₦513.0 million led by value.
Meanwhile, sector performance was bearish as 4 of 6 indices under Afrinvest analysts’ coverage trended southward.
The Banking and AFR-ICT indices led laggards, down 7.7% and 2.6% respectively, due to sell pressures in ZENITH (-10.0%), GUARANTY (-0.1%) and MTNN (-4.9%).
Trailing, the Industrial and Consumer Goods indices depreciated 1.4% and 1.0% following 6.5% losses in WAPCO, 4.4% in DANGCEM and 3.4% in NESTLE.
Conversely, the Insurance index was the lone gainer, up 1.1% due to price upticks in CORNERSTONE (+0.1%) and NEM (+0.1%) while the Oil & Gas index closed flat.
Again, investor sentiment as measured by market breadth weakened to 0.6x from the 1.4x recorded in the previous trading session as 13 stocks advanced relative to 22 decliners.
The best performers were AFRIPRUD which gained +9.9%, JAIZBANK +9.8% and CORNERSTONE +9.4%.
There was a 10% decline in UCAP, 10% ZENITH and 9.8% in ARBICO led the laggards.
“We expect the bearish trend to persist given the current global pandemic. However, we note that there are opportunities for bargain hunting”, Afrinvest said.
Equity market sinks to ₦11.505 trillion amid COVID-19 Bouts
