Sell Pressures Drag Down NSE Index By 0.01%
The bearish market resurfaced in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE on Tuesday, as the All Share Index, ASI inched lower by 0.01% to close 37,988.54 points, owing to sell pressures on a number of medium and large cap stocks.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date, MtD and Year-to-Date, YtD returns moderated marginally to -0.30% and -0.67% respectively. Consequent on this, investors lost N20.0 billion as market capitalization fell to N13.76 trillion.
The Banking and Consumer Goods indices posted the largest losses, declining by 0.29% apiece, while the Oil & Gas Index dropped by -0.07% amidst selloffs of Zenith Bank Plc , which dropped by -1.73% , International Breweries Plc declined by -6.14% and Japaul Oil declined by -8.89% shares respectively.
A breakdown of the activity chart indicates that Union Bank of Nigeria was the most active, trading 281.55 million shares worth N1.55 billion.
Fidelity Bank followed with a turnover of 61.92 million shares valued at N142.43 million, while Transcorp accounted for 26.71 million shares worth N36.73 million.
FBN Holdings sold 24.39 million shares worth N262.34 million, while Zenith International Bank traded 20.23 million shares valued at N518.50 million.
In spite of the drop posted by the crucial market indices, the volume of shares and valued closed higher.
Meanwhile, investor interest in NEM Insurance Plc led to a gain of +9.87% , followed by WAPCO which garnered +2.49% gain and Industrial Goods Index rose by +0.89% respectively. Market breadth turned negative, with 23 losers and 22 gainers, led by Japaul Oil which declined by -8.89% and NEM Insurance +9.87% respectively. Total volume and value of trades grew further by 160.20% and 37.58%, to 539.67 million units and N4.71 billion, respectively, traded in 4,202 deals. Cordros Capital, a Lagos based investment house said “
Despite still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals, and favourable stock entry prices, the absence of likely catalysts to spark off potential gains in the equities market dents our positive outlook for the market in the medium term.”
Analysts at Afrinvest Research said: “we observed increased investor interest in some small and mid-cap stocks which further supports our expectation of a positive performance this week.”
