Bellwethers drag market performance into negative as ASI down 1.6%

 

Losses in market bellwethers Dangote Cement (-3.5 percent), Guaranty Trust Bank (-2.9 percent), and Lafarge Africa (-4.1 percent) dragged the All Share Index (ASI) down 1.6 percent to 40,855.64 points today, reverting its positive close the previous session. As a result, year to date gain dropped to 6.8 percent), while market capitalization fell to N14.8 trillion as investors lost N234.4 billion. On the contrary, activity level improved as volume and value traded rose 34.8 percent and 68.8 percent to 364.8 million units and N6.3 billion respectively. Zenith Bank (88.2 million), Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (60.0 million) and Sterling Bank (40.5 million) led the top traded stocks by volume chart while Zenith Bank (N2.6 billion), Nigerian Breweries (N1.2 billion) and Nestle Nigeria (N0.6 billion) were the top traded stocks by value.
Sector performance was equally bearish as all indices under our coverage closed in the red. Leading the bearish performance was the Industrial Goods index, which shed 3.4 percent, due to profit taking in Dangote Cement (-3.5 percent) and Lafarge Africa (-4.1 percent). The Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices followed suit, closing 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent lower respectively on account of losses in Nigerian Breweries (-0.9 percent), Dangote Sugar (-3.7 percent), Forte Oil (-2.9 percent) and Mobil Nigetia (-0.4 percent). Similarly, the Banking index slid 0.4 percent as investors sold off position in Guaranty Trust Bank (-2.9 percent) and UBA (-0.9 percent). Also, sell offs in AXAMansard Insurance (-1.2 percent) and Linkage Assurance (-4.8 percent) drove the negative performance of the Insurance index (-0.1 percent).
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.3x from 0.9x recorded the previous week as 11 stocks advanced relative to 37 stocks that declined. Top performing stocks for today were Caverton (+9.0 percent), Law Union (+4.1 percent) and NEM Insurance (+4.0 percent) while Fidelity Bank (-9.3 percent), Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (-9.2 percent) and Japaul Oil (-6.8 percent) led the laggards list.