NSE equities market cap drops N39.1bn as sell-pressures hit banking stocks
Activities in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (www.nse.com.ng) resulted to decline in index on Monday as bear visits the local bourse after bullish run in the past weeks.
The equities market resumed trading in the red as losses in ZENITH (-2.3%), FBNH (-4.1%) and UNILEVER (-10.0%) drove the All-Share Index 0.3% lower to 29,552.99 points.
Consequently, year to date (YTD) return moderated to 10.1% while market capitalisation fell by ₦39.1 billion to ₦15.2 trillion.
On the other hand, activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 140.6% to 444.0m units while value traded declined 9.8% to ₦3.3 billion.
The top traded stocks by volume were VERITASKAP (225.6m units), ZENITH (45.4m units) and GUARANTY (26.7m units) while the top traded stocks by value were ZENITH (₦988.9m), GUARANTY (₦856.2m) and NESTLE (₦160.1m).
Performance across sectors was mixed albeit positively skewed as 3 of 6 indices under Afrinvest analysts’ coverage gained save the Oil & Gas and AFR-ICT indices which remained unchanged.
The Insurance index (+0.5%) led the gainers chart, anchored by price appreciation in LINKASSURE (+8.3%) and LASACO (+3.9%).
Likewise, the Consumer (+0.2%) and Industrial Goods (+0.1%) indices trailed, following buying interest in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+3.9%), VITAFOAM (+6.0%) and WAPCO (+0.6%).
On the contrary, the Banking index lost as sell-pressures in ZENITH (-2.3%) and ACCESS (-2.4%) dragged the index down by 1.2%.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved to 1.1x from the 0.8x recorded in the previous trading session as 14 stocks advanced relative to 13 decliners.
The best performers were NAHCO (+9.8%), NPFMCRFBK (+9.7%) and NEIMETH (+8.5%) while UNILEVER (-10.0%), ETERNA (-9.5%) and ROYALEX (-9.1%) led the laggards.
“We anticipate a positive trading week but we could see pockets of profit-taking activities in some sessions”, Afrinvest said.
NSE equities market cap By Sam Atanbiyi
