Equities market extends losing streak by 1.30%, as YTD drops to -0.36%

 

The equities market remained pressured as the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index ASI declined further by 1.30 percent to 38,104.54 basis points marking the 10th consecutive losing session and causing the year-to-date return to close negative at -0.36 percent. Accordingly, the month-to-date loss also dipped further to 7.67 percent.
Consequently, investors lost N181.8 billion as market capitalization fell to N13.8 trillion dragged majorly by NESTLE (-4.4%), DANGCEM (-1.0%) and INTERBREW (-4.8%). Activity level strengthened as volume and value traded inched 39.2% and 108.0% higher to 476.2m units and N9.9bn respectively. ZENITH (127.2m units & N3.3bn), GUARANTY (74.0m units & N3.0bn) and UBA (65.6m units & N700.8m) were the top traded by volume and value respectively. Relatedly, StanbicIBTC Holdings Plc today announced a share acquisition by its parent company, Stanbic Africa Holdings, which would increase its shareholding in the Nigerian bank to 64.4%.
Sector performance maintained its bearish trend as 4 of 5 indices we cover closed southwards. The Consumer and Industrial Goods indices lost 2.6% and 2.1% respectively on account of continued selloffs in NESTLE (-4.4%), INTERBREW (-4.8%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.9%), DANGCEM (-1.0%) and WAPCO (-4.9%). Similarly, the Banking index declined 1.1% as we saw price depreciation in GUARANTY (-1.2%) and ACCESS (-4.6%) while the Oil & Gas index waned 0.3% due to profit taking in FORTE (-9.1%). On the flipside, the Insurance index gained 0.2% as price appreciations in LINKASSURE (+1.2%) and MBENEFITS (+2.8%) buoyed the index.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) declined to 0.8x from 0.9x as 21 stocks advanced against 26 stocks that declined. Today’s top gainers were CCNN (+10.1%), FCMB (+8.1%) and FBNH (+5.7%) while INTERBREW (-9.6%), FORTE (-9.1%) and OKOMUOIL (-5.9%) were today’s top losers.