Investors Lose N26bn On Profit-taking Activities

The equities market closed the first trading week of the year on a negative zone with investors recording N26 billion losses.

The development is contrary to analysts’ prediction that the bullish trend the market took towards ended 2022 would be sustained in the new week.

They had opined that positioning for the 2022 full year corporate financial results releases would sustain a bullish outlook despite the pre-election concerns.

However, sell-offs in some heavy weights dragged the market down despite closing in the green territory in three of the four trading sessions during the week.

Consequently, the benchmark All Share Index (ASI) closed lower at 51,222.34 points from 51,251.06 points at the beginning of the week, thus representing a 0.06 percent decline.

Similarly, the market capitalisation of all the listed equities fell by N26 billion or 0.09 percent to close at N27.899 trillion from N27.915 trillion at the beginning of the trading week.

Precisely, selloffs of Airtel Africa Plc (-5.2%) and BUA Cement Plc (-1.8%) amid bargain-hunting in BUA Foods Plc (+14.6%) and Nigerian Breweries Plc (+14.6%) drove the weekly loss.

Resultantly, the Year-to-Date (YTD) return closed at -0.1 percent.

Analysing the activity levels, the total volume traded declined by 51 percent to 921.856 million units from 1.880 billion units in the previous week, while the total value traded increased by 43 percent to N27.154 billion from N18.988 billion in the previous week.

Analysis of the sectoral activity showed that with the exception of the industrial goods sector, which decreased by 0.6 percent, all other sectoral indices — consumer goods (+6.4%), banking (+4.3%), insurance (+2.7%), and the oil and gas (+0.1%) sectors – recorded gains.

In their projections for the week, analysts at Cordros Capital, said: “ We believe positioning for 2022 full year earnings releases and accompanying dividends declarations will continue to support buying activities on the local bourse even as institutional investors continue to search for clues on the direction of yields in the fixed income (FI) market.