Equities shed N7bn as banking stocks go bearish
The local equities market reversed its previous day’s gains on Tuesday as the benchmark index declined marginally by 0.03 per cent to close at 39,305.48 points.
The decline amounted to approximated N7 billion loss for investors, driven majorly by price falls in banking stocks such as GTBank that shed -0.5 per cent, Access Bank with -1.3 per cent depreciation and UBA that slipped byb-1.3 per cent, thus reversing the gains of the previous session.
Consequently, the market year to date loss settled at -2.4 per cent, while market capitalisation fell to N20.57 trillion from N20.58 trillion the previous day.
Similarly, the level of trading activity was scrawny as total volume and value traded fell 23.4 per cent and 13.9 per cent to 252.6 million units and N1.8 billion respectively.
The most traded stocks by volume were Access Bank (57.2m units), Transnational Corporation (30.8 million units) and Fidelity Bank (29.4 million units) while GTBank (N496.4 million), Access Bank (N410.1 million) and Zenith Bank (N328 million led by value.
Across the sectorial front, a bullish performance was exhibited as 4 indicators gained, the ICT index closed flat and the banking index lost 0.6 per cent following price declines in GTBank (-0.5 per cent) and Access Bank (-1.3 per cent).
The Insurance index led the gainers’ log, up 1.0 per cent due to price appreciation in Prestige Assurance (+9.5 per cent) and AXA Mansard Insurance (+1.1 per cent).
Also, the oil & gas index advanced 0.2 per cent following gains in Ardova Plc (+5.5 per cent) while the consumer and industrial goods indices appreciated 3 basis points and 2 basis points respectively on the back of buying interest in Champion Breweries (+7.5 per cent) and Wapco Plc (+0.2 per cent).
Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth weakened to 1.4x from the 1.5x recorded in the previous session as 23 stocks advanced against 16 decliners. Prestige Assurance (+9.5%), Wema Bank (+8.8%) and Royal Exchange Plc. (+7.7%) were the top gainers while Consolidated Health Insurance Plc (-9.1%), University Press Limited (-8.6%) and Chams Plc (-4.5%) were the top decliners.
Trading statistics for the session also show that at the close of the day, the NSE 30 Index marginally decreased by 0.04 per cent to close at 1,569.23 points as against 1,569.80 points as on the previous day.
Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 133.38 million units. Okomu Oil and Fidelity Bank were the key gainers, while Sterling Bank and UBA were the key losers.
