Sustained sell-offs drag market year to date loss to 6-weeks low
… As Naira at the inter-bank rate closed unchanged

 

The bearish performance of the Nigerian stock market filtered into the second trading session of the week as NSE All Share Index (ASI) fell 0.8 percent to settle at 36,963.70 points while year to date loss worsened to 3.3 percent.
Today’s negative performance is traceable to -7.7 percent loss in Stanbic IBTC Holdings, -7.4 percent in International Breweries and -1.5 percent loss in Guaranty Trust Bank.
Accordingly, investors lost N109.8 billion as market capitalization dropped to N13.4 trillion. Nonetheless, activity level was mixed as volume traded waned 32.9 percent to 203.6 million units while value traded rose 17.1 percent to N2.4 billion. The top traded stocks by volume were Transnational Corporation of Nigeria by 20.7 million, Access Bank by 19.5 million and Zenith Bank by 15.4 million while Guaranty Trust Bank with N434.4 million, Zenith Bank with N368.7 million and Nigerian Breweries with N336.9 million were the top traded stocks by value.
Across sectors, performance was mostly bearish as 4 of 5 indices trended southwards. The Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas indices fell 2.4 percent and 1.3 percent as a result of losses in Lafarge Africa (-8.0 percent) and Mobil Nigeria (-0.3 percent) respectively.
Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Banking indices shed 1.2 percent and 0.9 percent respectively following sell-offs in International Breweries (-7.4 percent), Nigerian Breweries (-1.4 percent), PZ (-10.0 percent), Guaranty Trust Bank (-1.5 percent), Zenith Bank (-0.6 percent) and Access Bank (-1.5 percent).
On the other hand, the Insurance index was the lone gainer, inching 0.2 percent northwards on the back of buy interest in Custodian and Allied (+2.5 percent), Continental Reinsurance (+3.5 percent) and Mutual Benefit (+5.9 percent).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 0.4x from 0.3x recorded in the preceding session as 14 stocks advanced compared to 33 that declined. The top performing stocks were Sovereigns Insurance (+8.0 percent), Wema Bank (+7.9 percent) and Japaul Oil (+6.5 percent) while Capital Oil (-10.0 percent), Julius Berger (-10.0 percent) and GlaxoSmithKlin (-10.0 percent) were the worst performers.
Despite today’s loss, investor sentiment improved slightly, albeit still soft.
However, Naira at the inter-bank rate closed unchanged at N305.80, against yesterday’s closing price.
The Investors and Exporters (I&E) FX window opened at N361.62, traded high at N363.00 and eventually closed at N361.70, representing a 0.04 percent appreciation against yesterday’s closing price. A total of $123.93 million was transacted through the I&E window today.
Meanwhile, overnight rate closed at 7.50 percent in money market representing a 2.00 percent depreciation against yesterday’s closing position, while Open Buy Back (OBB) rate closed at 8.58 percent representing a 1.92 percent depreciation against yesterday’s closing position.