Market Sheds N99bn As Profit-taking Dips Performance
At the close of trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week, the domestic equities market performed negatively as investors profit-taking in some blue chip stocks dipped the market’s value by N90.7 billion, resulting in the capitalisation level week-on-week to decline to N12.4 trillion.
Similarly, year-to-date loss settled at 11.1 per cent, while the All-Share Index closed in the red on three of the five trading sessions in the week, falling 72bps w/w to settle at 23,871.33 points.
Activity level weakened as average volume and value traded fell 44.4 per cent and 46.4 per cent to 221.4m units and N2.4bn respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were FBNH (141.6m units), Guarantee Trust Bank (69.1m units) and Zenith (56.1m units), while GTB (N1.5bn), Dangote Cement (N895.7m) and Zenith (N848.0m) led by value.
Performance across sectors was bearish as four of six indices under review also recorded negative trend week-on-week.
The industrial goods index led laggards, down 22 per cent on the back of sustained sell pressures in CAP (-9.8 per cent) and Dangote Cement (-4.3 per cent).
Trailing, the insurance and AFR-ICT indices shed 0.6 per cent and 0.6 per cent respectively on account of losses in Custodian (-9.5 per cent), NEM (-7.4 per cent) and MTN (-2.2per cent).
Price declines in Union Bank (-8.6 per cent) and Access Bank (-2.3 per cent) dragged the banking index lower by 3bps.
Conversely, the consumer goods index led gainers, up 2.3 per cent, as investors took positions in Unilever (+21.0 per cent ) and NASCON (+5.0 per cent), while buying interest in Eterna (+18.5 per cent), Mobil (+9.9 per cent ) and Total (+6.7 per cent) buoyed performance in the oil and gas index by 1.6 per cent.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth weakened to 1.0x from 1.8x last week as 29 stocks advanced against 28 that declined.
The top performing stocks for the week were NPF Micro Finance Bank (+50.8 per cent), Uniliver (+21.0 per cent) and May & Baker (+21. 9 per cent), while UAC-PROP (-13.0 per cent), CAP (-9.9 per cent) and Arbico (-9.9 per cent) were the laggards.
