Investors’ bet on Nigerian stocks wanes as bourse extends losses to third consecutive session

The Nigerian equities market extended losses Tuesday as investors’ sentiment waned for the third consecutive trading session, pushing benchmark index down by 0.7 percent to settle at 35,397.52 points as against 0.81 percent depreciation recorded previously.

Performance across sectors was broadly bearish as all indices declined save for the oil & gas index, which added 2.1 percent owing to bargain hunting in SEPLAT (+5.0%).

Conversely, losses in NESTLE (-4.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.4%) dragged the consumer goods index 2.2 percent lower while the industrial goods index dipped 1.9 percent on account of declines in DANGCEM (-0.5%) and WAPCO (-3.8%).

Likewise, the insurance and banking indices slipped 1.5 percent and 0.6 percent due to negative sentiment towards CONTINSURE (-4.8%) and GUARANTY (-0.7%).

The market performance, influenced largely by declines in large cap stocks such as NESTLE (-4.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.4%), DANGCEM (-0.5%) and WAPCO (-3.8%), further trimmed year-to-date gain to 31.7 percent.

Consequently, stocks lost N92.2 billion in value as market capitalization fell to N12.2 trillion. However, activity level surged as volume and value traded rose 225.4 percent and 165.4 percent to 373.5 million units and N5.8 billion respectively.

Investor sentiment as measured by the market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio) closed negative as 17 stocks advanced against 28 that declined.

At the summit of the gainers’ chart were INTBREW (+6.8%), UNILEVER (+5.0%) and NEM (+5.0%) while AIICO (-6.8%), FLOURMILL (-5.0%) and NESTLE (-4.9%) topped the losers’ chart.

MANSARD led the list of active stocks that recorded impressive volume spike at the end of the trading session.

Despite the pervading negative sentiments, analysts say the current
downtrend in the market would not persist beyond the short term as they
expect investor sentiment to remain largely driven by improvements in macroeconomic fundamentals in addition to expectations of positive Q3:2017 corporate earnings reports.