Investors’ fortune further decline yesterday as bearish run lingers in the market. The bearish performance of the domestic bourse stretched to the third consecutive trading session as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 45 basis points (bps) to settle at 28,966.41 points while year to date (YTD) loss further weakened to -7.8%.
Accordingly, market capitalisation fell to N10.89 trillion as investors lost N48.9 billion. Yesterday’s negative market performance was largely driven by profit taking in DANGCEM (-1.1%), GUARANTY (-2.1%) and ACCESS (-2.1%).
Nonetheless, activity level was mixed as volume traded dipped 24.6% to 324.6m units while value traded inched 14.4% higher to N3.2 billion. UBA (59.7 million), ACCESS (46.4 million) and STERLING (40.3 million) were today’s top traded stocks by volume while the top traded stocks by value were ZENITH (N661.7 million), GUARANTY (N494.4 million) and UBA (N409.0 million).
Performance across sectors was largely bearish as 4 of 5 indices under Afrinvest analysts’ coverage recorded losses. The Banking index led laggards, down 0.8% resulting from profit taking in GUARANTY (-2.1%), ACCESS (-2.1%) and ZENITH (-0.5%) while the Insurance index fell 0.4% following sell pressures in LINKASSURE (-5.9%) and SOVRENIN (-8.0%).
Similarly, the Industrial Goods dipped 0.2% due to a price depreciation in DANGCEM (-1.1%) while losses in MOBIL (-1.1%) and JAPAULOIL (-9.1%) pulled the Oil & gas index lower by 2bps. On the other hand, the Consumer Goods index trended northwards, inching 0.1% higher following buying interest in DANGFLOUR (+8.0%) and DANGSUGAR (+1.8%).
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.0x from 0.3x recorded in the prior trading session as 21 stocks advanced compared to 21 stocks that declined. The top performers were BETAGLAS (+10.0%), LIVESTOCK (+6.8%) and ETERNA (+5.1%) while GOLDINSURE (-10.0%), CHAMS (-9.4%) and JAPAULOIL (-9.1%) were the worst performers.
“With the Relative Strength Index (RSI) of the ASI at 28.4 – below the oversold region – and the strong investor sentiment, we anticipate a rebound in the near term. Nevertheless, we do not rule out the possibility of sustained sell-offs in subsequent trading sessions this week”, Afrinvest said.
