Sell Pressure in Bellwethers Drags Equities Market Performance
Sell pressure witnessed in bellwethers drags the equities segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) back from uptrend trajectory reported in the previous days.
Specifically noted was sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-7.1%), GUARANTY (-2.6%), ZENITH (-1.6%) that pullback benchmark index lower by 26bps to 35,056.82 points.
Consequently, investors lost ₦42.0bn as market capitalisation fell to ₦18.3 trillion while year to date return moderated to 30.6%.
Then, tt was also observed that activity level waned as volume and value traded rose 19.7% and 61.4% to 369.0m units and ₦5.5bn respectively.
Meanwhile, market data shows that the most traded stocks by volume were ACCESS (46.3 million units), FBNH (44.4 million units) and ZENITH (44.0 million units).
GUARANTY (₦1.3 billion), ZENITH (₦1.1 billion) and DANGSUGAR (₦619.1 million) led by value.
Afrinvest said performance across sectors was weak as 4 of the 6 indices under the investment firm’s coverage declined.
The Insurance index was the lone gainer, up 0.3% due to price appreciation in AIICO (+9.9%), CORENERSTONE (+7.4%) and CHIPLC (+7.1%).
Conversely, the Consumer Goods and Banking indices declined 1.8% and 0.8% respectively, following sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-7.1%), GUARANTY (-2.6%) and ZENITH (-1.6%).
Likewise, the Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices lost 0.7% and 2bps respectively, owing to price declines in OANDO (-5.0%), ARDOVA (-4.4%) and CAP (-7.0%).
Elsewhere, the AFR-ICT index closed flat.
More so, investor sentiment as measured by market breadth strengthened to 0.9x from the 0.8x recorded in the previous session as 19 stocks gained against the 22 that declined.
AIICO (+9.9%), REGALINS (+9.1%) and FTNCOCOA (+8.7%) led the gainers while CILEASING (-9.9%), MANSARD (-9.7%) and NNFM (-9.7%) led the decliners.
Read Also: NSE Pulse Rises as Consumers Goods Stocks Boost Performance
“We expect bargain hunting in the next trading session”, Afrinvest stated.
