Stock Market Rally Stalls as Investors Book Profits
The Nigerian stock market rally stalls Tuesday as investors’ book profit, thus resulted to N122.4 billion loss despite positive opening in the week.
The equities market closed in the red following sell-offs in NESTLE (-6.9%), WAPCO (-7.1%) and FLOURMILL (-6.4%).
As a result, the benchmark index fell 59 basis points (bps) to 39,697.62 points, year to date loss worsened to -1.4%.
Due to sell-offs, stock market capitalisation declined by ₦122.4 billion to ₦20.8 trillion.
Trading activity varied as volume declined by 59.1% to 222.6 million units and value rose 185.5% to ₦5.4 billion.
The most traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (48.1 million units), UCAP (20.2 million units) and MBENEFIT (19.4 million units).
Meanwhile NESTLE (₦2.7 billion), ZENITH (₦1.2 billion) and GUARANTY (₦240.7 million) led by value.
In a report, Afrinvest stated that performance across sectors was poor as 4 of the 6 indices under its coverage closed southward.
The Insurance index emerged the lone gainer, up 0.2% due to price appreciation in NEM (+6.0%) and PRESTIGE (+7.0%).
On the flip side, the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices lost 3.9% and 0.9% respectively due to declines in NESTLE (-6.9%), FLOURMILL (-6.4%), ARDOVA (-10.0%) and OANDO (-4.7%).
Similarly, the Industrial Goods and Banking indices closed lower by 0.4% and 0.1% respectively following sell pressures in WAPCO (-7.1%), UBA (-1.8%) and ZENITH (-0.6%).
It also noted the AFR-ICT index closed flat.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth increased to 0.7x from the 0.4x recorded previously as 17 stocks advanced against 24 decliners.
NSE Opens Positive after Red Market Days
ACADEMY (+9.8%), PZ (+9.4%) and ROYALEX (+8.0%) were the top gainers while MBENEFIT (-10.0%), ARDOVA (-10.0%) and CHAMPION (-9.7%) were the top losers.
“As investor sentiment remains subpar, we are not optimistic about significant gains in the market this week”, Afrinvest said.
Analysts have stated expectation the equities segment would experience some market rout due to the adjustment to yields in the fixed income market.
Nigerian Stock Market Rally Stalls as Investors Book Profits
