Bears maintain grip on Nigerian equities as investors lose N16bn

The bearish outlook of the Nigerian equities market lasted yet another day as investors recorded the fourth negative close in a row with N16 billion loss on Tuesday.

The trend has been ascribed to profit-taking pressure with minimal effect on the general performance of the market as high liquidity, bargain hunting and trapped foreign funds inflow into the market continue to temper the full effect of profit-booking by investors.

As the market closed on Tuesday, the local bourse’s benchmark index fell by 0.09 per cent as it shed 30.62 points to close at 35,033.74 basis points while market capitalization followed suit with the N16 billion loss to close lower at N18.311 trillion.

Thus, Month-to-Date (MtD) return of the Nigerian equities market declined to 0.0 per cent, while Year-to-Date (YtD) gain moderated to 30.5 per cent.

The market also lost momentum marginally during the session as total volume of trades decreased by 5.1 per cent to 307.72 million units, valued at N3.27 billion, and exchanged in 4,507 deals compared to 324.32 million shares worth N3.19 billion that exchanged hands in 4,108 transactions in the previous session.

NSE Trading floor

Performance across sectors was broadly negative, as three indices – Banking (-0.3 per cent), Industrial Goods (-0.1 per cent) and Consumer Goods (-0.1 per cent) – closed in the red. The Insurance (+0.5 per cent) and Oil & Gas (+0.3 per cent) indices recorded gains.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative as 17 tickers declined, relative to 14 gainers.

According to the trading report by the Nigerian Stock Exchange, ETI led the gaining stocks with N0.45 gain to close at N5.85 per share. Dangsugar trailed with N0.30gain to close at N18.90 per share.

Others are UANC, ONADO and FTNCOCOA gaining N0.10, N0.08 and N0.03 to close at N7.30, N2.93 and N0.34 per share respectively.

On the flipside, Flourmill led decliners with by losing N1.20 to close at N25.30 per share. Zenith Bank and WAPCO shed N0.30 each to close at N23.40 and N22.50 in that order. Access Bank and NAHCO shed N0.20 and N0.10 to close at N8.30 and N2.30 per share respectively.

Further analysis of the trading statistics reveals that in terms of turnover, United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Zenith Bank led the charges to move both volume and value of trade.

UBA traded 142.436 million shares valued at N1.202 billion during the session while ZenithBank’s investors pushed 33.857 million shares worth N795.52 million shares.