NSE Sheds ₦202.4 Billion as Investors Dump Stocks
The Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, sheds weight this week as investors cumulative losses printed at ₦202.4 billion on Friday.
In what appears to be a new market rout, the equities segment continued on a downtrend this week with trading closing in the red on 3 of 5 days.
As a result, the All-Share index fell 1.0% week on week to 39,799.89 points, bucking the 40,000 psychological benchmark for the first time this year.
Market capitalisation fell by ₦202.4 billion to ₦20.8 trillion while year to date return declined to -1.2%.
Activity level improved as average volume and value traded rose 25.3% and 13.3% to 386.0m units and ₦4.1 billion respectively.
The most traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (253.6m units), FBNH (163.3m units) and TRANSCORP (125.2m units).
Meanwhile, ZENITH with transaction value worth ₦6.6 billion, GUARANTY ₦3.3 billion and FBNH ₦1.2 billion led by value.
Afrinvest said in a report that performance across sectors was lacklustre as 4 of 6 indices under its coverage declined week on week.
Leading the gainers are the Oil & Gas and Banking indices, up 1.0% and 0.7% week on week respectively as OANDO (+12.4%), STANBIC (+3.4%) and ZENITH (+3.0%) ticked higher.
On the other hand, the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices lost the most, down 4.9% and 3.2% week on week respectively due to price declines in LASACO (-26.8%), MANSARD (-10.2%), CHAMPION (-15.2%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-11.9%).
Similarly, the AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices recorded losses of 1.7% and 0.5% this week respectively due to sell-offs in MTNN (-3.3%) and WAPCO (-7.6%).
Analysts also noted that investor sentiment as measured by market breadth weakened to 0.4x from 1.3x last week as 17 stocks gained against the 43 that declined.
ACADEMY (+17.1%), OANDO (+12.4%) and UPDC (+9.3%) led the top gainers while LASACO (-26.8%), AFRIPRUD (-21.2%) and CHAMPION (-15.2%) led the decliners.
“In the coming week, we expect trading sessions to be a mix of bargain hunting and sustained sell-offs.
“The direction of yields in the fixed income market would also influence trades especially given the sustained increase in marginal rates at the OMO auction this week”, Afrinvest said.
8 out of 10 most valuable stocks record negative return
NSE Sheds ₦202.4 Billion as Investors Dump Stocks
