Sell-offs in highly capitalised stocks such as Dangote Cement (-1.7%), Guaranty Trust Bank (-3.0%) and Eco Transnational Incorporated (-3.1%) led the Nigerian equities market to shed 0.78 percent on Wednesday.
The All Share Index closed the day at 31,969.8 points, bringing the year-to-date loss to -16.4 percent, while market capitalisation fell by N92.2 billion to close at N11.7 trillion.
Activity chart and sectoral performance reviews were however largely positive as volume and value traded rose 60.5 percent and 95.0 percent to 237.8 million units and N3.5 billion respectively. Three of five major sectoral indicators closed in green.
Boosting the volume of stocks traded Wednesday were Oando (58.6m units), Zenith Bank (24.0m units) and FCMB (21.6m units) while GTB with sale of shares worth N759.6m, Zenith with N577.6bn and Stanbic with N477.4bn boosted total value of stocks traded.
The oil & gas and insurance indices advanced 1.1 percent and 0.3 percent respectively on account of buy interests in Mobil (+10.0%) and Prestige (+9.8%). The consumer goods index trailed, appreciating by 0.2 percent as a result of gains in International Breweries (+1.8%) and Flourmills (+3.3%).
On the flip side, the industrial goods index shed 2.6 percent following sell-offs in Dangote Cement (-1.7%) and WAPCO (-6.3%) while the banking index declined by 1.6 percent on the back of losses in GTB (-3.0%) and ETI (-3.1%).
Investor sentiment closed weak in comparison to previous trading session as 10 stocks appreciated against 22 decliners.
The best-performing stocks for the day were Mobil (+10.0%), Prestige Assurance (+9.9%) and Union DAC (+8.7%) while Unity Bank (-8.6%%), Jaiz Bank (-8.2%) and WAPCO (-6.3%) led laggards.
On the backdrop of the day’s performance, Afrinvest analysts expect investors to embark on bargain hunting in the next trading session while maintaining a bearish outlook in the near term.
Corroborating, analysts at Imperial assets also noted that the market may witness “ bargain hunting on stocks currently trading below their 3 and 6-month low which will be laced with periodic profit taking.”
The souls of our ancestors will now rest in peace!