As a result, the market capitalisation inched to N11.3tn as investors’ wealth increased by N84.4bn. Nevertheless, activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 32.8% and 30.7% to 216.0m units and N3.2bn respectively. The top traded stocks by volume wereACCESS (39.2m units), UBA (24.2m units) and LASACO (20.8m units) while the top traded stocks by value were NESTLE (N1.5bn), ZENITH (N342.5m) and GUARANTY (N311.6m).
Mixed Sector Performance
The sector performance was mixed albeit negatively skewed as 3 out of 5 indices under our coverage declined. The Oil & Gas index shed the most, down 1.4% due to sell-offs onSEPLAT (-3.4%). In the same vein, the Industrial Goods and Banking indices dipped 0.4% and 0.2% respectively due to losses on CCNN (-3.6%), GUARANTY (-2.4%) and WEMA(-5.6%). On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index was the best performer, up 2.7% on the back of buying interest in NESTLE (+5.3%) while the Insurance index closed flat marginally gaining 3bps.
Investor Sentiment Weakens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) took a negative turn to 0.9x from 2.1x in the prior session as 16 stocks gained against 17 losers. The best performing stocks were ACCESS (+9.9%), CHAMS (+9.1%) and FIRSTALUM (+8.6%) while the laggards were led by TRANSEXPR (-9.8%), UACPROP (-9.6%) andABCTRANS (-8.3%). The relatively weak investor sentiment portends that the last trading session of the week may be dominated by profit taking activities especially in bellwethers that had recorded gains in previous sessions.
