Oil & Gas, Bank Stocks Drag Market N72bn Lower

Banking and oil and gas stocks have further dragged the market lower, shedding N72bn as the market capitalisation of equities dropped to N12.930tn on Wednesday.

The market capitalisation of equities, which increased to N13.049tn on Monday, dropped to N12.975tn on Tuesday, and N12.930tn on Wednesday, bringing the total losses recorded in three days to N119bn.

Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited said the bearish outcome on Wednesday was due to major losses in FBN Holdings Plc, Access Bank Plc and Dangote Cement Plc as the All Share Index fell by 35 basis points to close at 26,790bps.

Activity level weakened as volume and value traded fell by 9.6 per cent and 52.2 per cent to 189.860 million units and N1.5bn, respectively.

The most traded stocks by value were Transnational Corporation Plc (26.3 million units), Zenith Bank Plc (22.5 million units) and Chams Plc (18.9 million units) while Zenith Bank (N416.4m), Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (N207.1m) and MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (N120.3m) led by value.

Performance across sectors was largely bearish as four indices recorded losses.

The insurance and AFR-ICT indices gained following buying interest in Wapic Insurance Plc, Aiico Insurance Plc, AXA Mansard Insurance Plc and Airtel Africa Plc.

On the flip side, the oil and gas index topped laggards, losing 1.1 per cent on the back of a major price decline in Oando Plc, while sell-offs in Access Bank, Sterling Bank and Cadbury Nigeria Plc dragged the banking and consumer goods indices down by 0.5 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively.

The industrial goods index declined by 0.08 per cent due to losses in Dangote Cement.

Investor sentiment weakened as market breadth (advance/decline ratio) fell to 0.7x from the 1.0x recorded on Tuesday as 19 stocks gained against 26 losers.

Analysts at Afrinvest said they expected a mixed performance for the rest of the week.