Investors’ losses widen as weak “macros” fuel negative sentiment
Weak macroeconomic performance has continued to fuel the persistent bearish trend of the equity market, thus widening investors’ losses.
From the beginning of the year to date, equity value has declined 14.1% as portfolio investors take cover in the fixed income market.
This bearish streak continued till last week in the domestic bourse following sell-offs in ETI (-14.6%), UACN (-14.4%) and FIDSON (-18.9%).
Market data shows that losses were recorded on all trading sessions, dragging the All Share index down 2.5% week on week to 26,987.45 points while year to date, YTD, loss worsened.
Market capitalisation declined by N334.7 billion to N13.1 trillion. However, activity level declined as average volume and value pared 24.7% and 31.2% to 165.2 million units and N2.3 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were GUARANTY -146 million units, ACCESS -76.2 million units and FBNH -60 million units while GUARANTY -N4 billion, DANGCEM – N908.3 million and NESTLE -N694.8 billion led by value.
The review of the performance shows that the market closed red on the first trading day of last week due to losses in, MTNN, ETI, and UNILEVER.
After the public holiday on Tuesday, trading resumed with the ASI declining 1.1% and 0.8% on Wednesday and Thursday respectively due to sell pressures in GUARANTY, NIGERIAN BREWERIES, NESTLE and ZENITH.
On Friday the local bourse also ended in the red territory as it lost 0.4%. Performance was mixed across sectors under Afrinvest coverage week on week.
The Consumer Goods index led the laggards, shedding 4.9% week on week on the back of selloffs in UNILEVER (-7.9%) and NESTLE (-6.7%).
Trailing, the Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT indices pared 2.2% and 2.6% week on week respectively following price depreciation in MRSOIL (-9.8%), CONOIL (-9.2%) and MTNN (-4.4%).
Also, the Banking index was down 3.9% week on week due to price depreciation in ETI (-14.6%) and ACCESS (-5.9%).
Conversely, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices gained 5.7% and 0.1% week on week respectively as buying interest in CONTINSURE (+20.1%) and CAP (+9.9%) buoyed the indices.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened at 0.4x from 0.5x as 15 tickers gained against 37 that lost.
The top gainers were CONTINSURE (+20.1%), LAWUNION (+12.8%) and NIGERINS (+10.0%) while FIDSON (-18.9%), ETI (-14.6%) and UACN (-14.4%) led the decliners.
“We expect the bears to sustain their grip on the market in the absence of a catalyst to boost sentiment”, Afrinvest stated.
