Stocks’ six weeks of decline bleed over a new start
The Nigerian equities market has been in the red territory for in the last six consecutive weeks principally because of rising appetite in the fixed income market where yields are continuously getting better as well as profit-taking pressure.
Upon returning to the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday to begin a new week, the bears maintained firm grip on the market despite the influx of better than expected 2020 financial reports filed by issuers.
Specifically, the local bourse kicked off the week on Monday on a bearish note, as investors booked profit in GUARANTY (-2.6 per cent), Nigerian Breweries (-5.3 per cent) and INTBREW (-3.8 per cent) alongside 15 other equities.
The NSE All Share Index (ASI) shed 86.64 points equivalent to 0.22 per cent decline to close lower at 38,561.84 basis points while the capitalization of equities investments at the bourse shrank by N45 billion to close at N20.176 trillion.
As the ASI declined the Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (YtD) losses increased to -3.1 per cent and -4.2 per cent, respectively.
As the total volume of trades declined by 37.2 per cent to 184.53 million units, valued of trade trailed the same line by contracting by 33.21 per cent to close at N2.52 billion and exchanged in 3,527 deals.
Performance across sectors was mixed, following gains in the Insurance (+2.0 per cent) and Oil & Gas (+0.7 per cent) indices, and losses in the Consumer Goods (-1.5 per cent) and Banking (-1.0 per cent) indices. The Industrial Goods index however closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.9x), as 17 tickers lost relative to 16 gainers.
Based on their appearance in the snapshot of the day’s trading activities released by the NSE, WAPIC topped gainers with N0.05 gain to close at N0.55 per share.
NNFM followed with N0.55 to close at N6.20 per share. SMURFIT, NEM and BERGER also added N0.02, N0.16 and N0.45 to their respective share prices to close at N0.26, N2.19 and N6.50 per share.
On the flip side, REGALINS led 15 other decliners as it lost N0.03 to close at N0.30 per share. Livestock trailed with N0.17 decline to close at N1.83 per share while NB, JAIZBANK and LASACO shed N2.65, N0.62 and N0.06 to close at N47, N0.62 and N1.24 per share respectively.
