Persist sell pressure in the equity market dragged all share index down 1.2% week on week.
The bearish sentiment halts bullish appearance in the market, therefore dragged the performance of the All Share Index (ASI) last week despite positive earnings releases of some listed companies.
Some analysts observed that profit taking and sell pressures persisted across most trading sessions as the benchmark index posted losses on 2 of the 4 trading days.
Thus, the NSE All Share Index declined 1.2% W-o-W to settle at 29,740.41 points and year to date (YTD) return dropped further to -5.4% while market capitalisation declined by N123.7 billion to close at N11.2 trillion.
However, activity level was mixed as average volume traded increased by 22.8% W-o-W to 303.5 million units while average value traded reduced by 5.7% W-o-W to N2.7 billion.
The top traded stocks for the week by volume were JAPAULOIL (312.3 million units), UBA (97.4 million units) and UNILEVER (81.4 million units), while the top traded by value were UNILEVER (N2.5 billion), ZENITH (N1.7 billion) and GUARANTY (N1.3 billion).
Afrinvest note shows that trading activities for the week opened up on a slightly positive note on Tuesday as the ASI marginally advanced by a basis point, due to gains in DANGCEM, FBNH, and UBA.
On Wednesday, profit taking in DANGCEM, NESTLE and INTBREW reversed the positive performance by 63bps. However, on Thursday, the local bourse advanced by 7 bps, on the back of buying interest in SEPLAT, GUARANTY and STANBIC before declining by 60bps on Friday following losses on FBNH, DANGCEM and GUARANTY.
It was observed that performance across sectors was largely bearish as 4 of 5 indices under the firm’s coverage declined W-o-W. The Oil & Gas index emerged the lone gainer, up 0.4% W-o-W due to sustained buying interest in OANDO (+10.4%) and FORTE (+8.3%).
On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index declined the most, down 2.6% W-o-W due to sell pressures in GUINNESS (-19.0%) and INTBREW (-13.0%) while the Industrial Goods index trailed, down 2.2% W-o-W due to price declines in DANGCEM (-1.1%) and JBERGER (-10.0%).
Similarly, the Insurance and Banking indices shed 0.9% and 0.1% W-o-W respectively due to sell offs in PRESTIGE (-9.1%), LAWUNION (-7.4%) and FBNH (-5.2%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.8x from 1.0x in the previous week as 29 stocks appreciated compared to 37 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks were DANGFLOUR (+45.3%), JAPAULOIL (+40.0%) and CUTIX (+28.1%) while GUINNESS (-19.0%), MAYBAKER (-13.5%) and INTBREW (-13.0%) led the laggards.
“Given the sluggish recovery of the economy, we anticipate that the lingering bearish sentiments will remain in the near term as foreign investors continue to stay on the sidelines” analysts noted.
