The Nigerian stock market has extended a bearish run that saw index down below psychological benchmark. The domestic equities market continued on a bearish note in the second trading session of the week shedding 1.23% to settle at 29.159.74 points following losses in DANGCEM(-3.2%), NESTLE (-1.9%) and STANBIC (-3.8%).
Consequently, market capitalisation shed N135.8 billion in a trading session to settle at N11.0 trillion while year to date (YTD loss worsened to -7.2%. However, activity level notably strengthened as volume and value traded advanced by 87.4% and 278.8% to 543.8 million units and N8.2 billion respectively.
Also, CCNN (132.3 million units), FBNH (68.8 million units) and UNILEVER (50.5 million units) were the top trades by volume while CCNN (N1.9bn), UNILEVER (N1.6 billion) and GUARANTY (N1.4bn) led the top trades by value.
The sector performance was mixed albeit largely bullish as 3 out of 5 indices under our coverage trended northwards. The Oil and Gas index led advancers by 1.5% following buying interest in SEPLAT (+1.2%) and FO (+10.0%).
Similarly, the Insurance index advanced 0.1% on the back of gains in LASACO (+3.3%) while the Banking index marginally inched higher by 1 basis point due to gains in ZENITH (+1.0%) and ACCESS (+2.2%).
On the flip side, the Industrial Goods index led decliners down 3.2% due to profit taking inDANGCEM (-3.2%) and CCNN (-8.8%) and while losses in NESTLE (-1.9%) and DANGSUGAR (-0.7%) led to a 0.7% decline in the Consumer Goods index.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.4x from 1.0x recorded in previous day’s session as 26 stocks advanced against 19 decliners. Top performers were UAC-PROP (+10.0%), JAPAULOIL (+10.0%) and CAVERTON(+10.0%) while CUTIX (-9.8%), GOLDINSURE (-9.1%) and CCNN (-8.8%) declined the most.
“In the near term, we expect to see bargain hunting activities due to the attractive entry prices of several fundamentally sound stocks in the market, although this may be short-lived in the absence of major growth triggers in the economy”,Afrinvest said.
