Nigerian stocks’ bearish run lingers as NSEASI dips 0.18% on profit taking

Nigerian stocks trade low again Wednesday as profit-taking in GUARANTY (-1.4%), UNILEVER (-5.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.4%) pare benchmark index, the NSEASI by 0.18 percent to settle at 41,080.12 points while YTD return further weakened to 7.4 percent.

The day’s performance becomes the third consecutive downtrend this week

Accordingly, market capitalisation fell to N14.8 trillion as stocks lost N27.4 billion in value. Despite the downtrend, activity level was mixed as volume traded dipped 39.5 percent to 341.1 million units while value traded inched 61.7 percent higher to N9.33 billion.

GUARANTY (162.8m), FIDELITY (29.5m) and FBNH (25.9m) were today’s top traded stocks by volume while the top traded stocks by value were GUARANTY (N7.4bn), ZENITH (N378.5m) and FBNH (N310.9m).

Performance across sectors was mixed. The oil & gas index closed flat while insurance and industrial goods indices advanced 1.5 percent and 0.2 percent respectively due to price appreciations in MANSARD (+4.7%), LINKASSURE (+3.6%), CCNN (+4.9%) and DANGCEM (+0.4%).

On the flip side, the banking and consumer goods indices trended southwards, inching 0.5 percent and 0.8 percent lower respectively as a result of profit taking in GUARANTY (-1.4%), UBA (-0.4%), UNILEVER (-5.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.4%).

Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened further to 0.8x from 1.0x recorded in the preceding trading session as 22 stocks advanced compared to 27 stocks that declined.

The top performers were VERITASKAP (+5.7%), CCNN (+4.9%) and MANSARD (+4.7%) while JAPAULOIL (-8.3%), CUTIX (-5.0%) and UNILEVER (-5.0%) were the worst performers.

Despite the softer sentiment in the market, analysts and market watchers still anticipate a rebound in the near term on the back of bargain hunting in bellwethers.