Investors Incur N517bn Post-election Trading Loss
Investors in the nation’s stock market lost N517bn in 12 days.
The investors lost N289bn after the presidential and National Assembly elections, and N228bn in two days after the governorship and House of Assembly polls.
Losses on the Nigerian Stock Exchange extended into the fifth consecutive trading session on Tuesday as the All Share Index declined by 1.02 per cent, dragging the year-to-date return to -0.4 per cent.
The market capitalisation of equities listed on the floor of the NSE dropped from N11.998tn on Tuesday last week to N11.978tn on Wednesday and N11.937tn on Thursday.
On Friday, the market capitalisation dropped further to N11.905tn.
The bearish sentiment persisted as the market opened this week on a bearish note, recording a loss of N108bn on Monday and a further N120bn on Tuesday to close at N11.677tn.
The market recorded positive performance in the first 24 minutes of trading on Tuesday, after which it started to decline at 10:43 am.
The biggest decline for the day was recorded at 12:37 pm, shedding 102.6 basis points in two minutes.
At 2:15 pm, the market hit its lowest point during the day at 31,269.27bps, after which it began to rise, gaining 44.09bps to close at 31,313bps.
The banking sector recorded the biggest loss, down by 2.26 per cent on the back of major sell-offs witnessed in Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and Zenith Bank Plc.
The consumer goods sector was the second biggest loser for the day as it shed 1.30 per cent.
The insurance and oil and gas sectors saw respective declines of 0.51 per cent and 0.37 per cent due to losses recorded in 11 Plc, Linkage Assurance Plc and Wapic Insurance Plc.
The industrial goods sector emerged the lone gainer for the day, with a gain of 0.24 per cent buoyed by gains in Lafarge Africa Plc.
However, activity level improved as volume and value traded advanced by 71 per cent and 22.7 per cent to 219.369 million units and N2.927bn, respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were FBN Holdings Plc (60.1 million units), Zenith Bank (46.5 million units) and Diamond Bank Plc (14.5 million units) while Zenith Bank (N1.1bn), FBN Holdings (N493.1m) and Dangote Cement Plc (N437.4m) were the top traded stocks by value.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.3x from the 0.7x recorded on Monday as eight gainers emerged against 30 losers.
The top five losers were International Breweries Plc, UPDC Real Estate Investment Trust, AG Leventis Nigeria Plc, Jaiz Bank Plc and Linkage Assurance, whose respective share prices shed 9.93 per cent, 9.24 per cent, 8.82 per cent, 8.62 per cent and 7.94 per cent.
The gainers for the day were Law Union and Rock Insurance Plc, UACN Property Development Company Plc, United Capital Plc, Lafarge Africa, AIICO Insurance Plc, Africa Prudential Plc, Union Bank Nigeria Plc and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, which saw respective gains of 7.69 per cent, 7.14 per cent, 4.13 per cent, four per cent, 2.82 per cent, 2.50 per cent, 1.45 per cent and 0.79 per cent.
Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited said, “Despite the consecutive negative performance recorded, we expect investor bargain hunting to drive market performance over the near term.”
