Year-to-date loss worsen as stock market cap drops to N12.8 trillion| The Nigerian Stock Exchange www.nse.com.ng extends loss last week as year-to-date (YTD) loss pitched at 15.6%.
Equities market capitalization settled at N12.8 trillion while All-Share-Index closed at 26,536.21 after it shed 1.2% week on week.
Market performance continued its bearish mood, as equities values depreciated by N218.2 billion in the week according to Afrinvest.
The firm stated in a note that activity level was mixed as average volume traded fell 10.1% to 155.3 million units while value traded increased 14.5% to N1.4 billion.
The top traded stocks by volume were UNIONDAC with transacted 187.2 million units, GUARANTY 75.2 million units and ZENITH 66.2 million units.
Top traded stocks by value were DANGCEM traded stock worth N4.5 billion, GUARANTY N2.2 billion and NESTLE N1.2 billion.
During the week, the domestic equities market opened the first two-trading days bearish as the benchmark index fell 0.7% and 1.1% respectively.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday and Thursday, buying interest in MTNN, GUARANTY and NIGERIAN BREWERIES drove the ASI higher by 0.2% and 0.5% respectively.
Afrinvest noted that the local bourse pared gains from Thursday’s session, down 0.1% as investors took small profit for the week.
Across sectors, performance was bearish as 4 of 6 indices under Afrinvest analysts coverage trended southward week on week.
The AFR-ICT index led decliners, down 1.3% due to profit-taking in CHAMS (-18.9%) and MTNN (-2.3%).
The Banking and Industrial Goods indices trailed, declining 1.2% apiece following sell-offs in UBN (-7.1%), WEMABANK (-4.3%), CUTIX (-11.7%) and BERGER (-10.0%).
Similarly, losses in NESTLE (-3.7%) and HONEYFLOUR (-2.9%) drove the Consumer Goods index 0.5% lower.
On the flip side, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices rose 3 basis points (bps) apiece as MANSARD gained +9.1%, CORNERSTONE +4.8%), ETERNA +7.1%) and OANDO +0.3%.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.4x from 0.6x in the prior week consequent on 17 stocks advancing relative to 44 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks for the week were PRESCO which gained +14.9%, DANGSUGAR +10.3% and MANSARD +9.1%.
CHAMS dropped by 18.9%, UNIONDAC -15.4% and GLAXOSMITH -12.5% to lead the laggards.
Afrinvest said: “In the coming week, we expect market performance to remain bearish due to profit-taking activities and the absence of economic buffers”.
