Stocks Tumble 0.47% as Investors Engage in Selling Rallies

Stocks Tumble 0.47% as Investors Engage in Selling Rallies

Stocks tumble 0.47% as Investors engage in selling rallies on Friday amidst global market rout. Consequently, the equity segment of the Nigerian Exchange market capitalisation sloped downward due to price depreciation in medium and large-cap stocks following yesterday’s rally.

Losses recorded on the last trading day, according to analysts, eroded the cumulative 0.4% gain as of the penultimate trading day as Nestle Nigeria share dropped more than 9%.

This, in addition to the negative sentiment on ACCESS, UBA, FTNCOCOA and 12 others stocks dragged the benchmark index lower at 39,483.08 points as market capitalization dips also by 0.48 per cent.

Then, year to date losses widened while month to date returns decline, the Nigerian Exchange equity market capitalisation then settled at N20.571 trillion. Stock market data shows that activities closed on a higher note with the volume and value of stocks traded on the exchange appreciating by 39.01 per cent and 89.48 per cent respectively.

A total of 280.57 million units of shares valued at ₦3.18 billion were traded in 4,012 deals. HONEYFLOUR led the volume chart, accounting for 20.47 per cent of the total volume of trades, followed by GTCO (15.18%), JAIZBANK (7.98%), MBENEFIT (5.77%), and TRANSCORP (5.12%) to complete the top five on the volume chart.

GTCO topped the value chart accounting for 37.41 per cent of the total value of trade on the exchange. LASACO and NEIMETH topped the advancers’ list, as their share prices inched upward by 10.00 per cent and 9.63 per cent, respectively.

FTNCOCOA led the losers’ table with its share price declining by 6.98 per cent to close at ₦0.40 after opening the day at ₦0.43.

The selloff in NESTLE (-9.1%) drove the weekly loss. Consequently, the month to date and year to date returns settled at +2.4% and -2.0%, respectively. Meanwhile, activity levels were weaker than the prior week, as trading volumes and value declined by 45.9% and 2.4% week on week, respectively.

Save for the Industrial Goods (+1.9%) index that closed in the green; the Consumer Goods (-6.3%), Insurance (-1.0%), Banking (-0.8%) and Oil and Gas (-0.6%) indices closed in the red.

“We expect the bulls to regain dominance in the market given the moderation in the prices of bellwether stocks this week amid the declining yields in the fixed income market”, says Cordros Capital in its market report.

However, analysts said they do not rule out the possibility of continued profit-taking activities, adding that the choppy trading pattern that played out this week will persist in the week ahead.

“Overall, we advise investors to take positions in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro environment remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings”, Cordros Capital added.

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Stocks Tumble 0.47% as Investors Engage in Selling Rallies