Nigeria equities close in red on sell-offs in ZENITH, ETI, DANGSUGAR, investors lose N9.2bn

The equities market will more likely close the week in the red zone given the bearish sentiments which have played in the local bourse this week. Consequently, market investors parted with N9.2 billion owing to the bearish performance which saw Zenith, ETI and DANGSUGAR stocks drag the market on Thursday.

On the trading floor sell-offs in ZENITH (-1.8%), DANGSUGAR (-5.9%) and ETI (-2.5%) dragged the benchmark index lower by seven basis points (bps) to settle at 25,532.74 points. Consequently, market capitalisation fell to N13.3 trillion as investors lost N9.2 billion while the pegged year to date (YTD) performance worsened to a negative 4.9 per cent.

Similarly, the activity level in the market was mixed as volume traded rose 9.2 per cent to 231.2 million units while value traded decreased 13.3 per cent to N2.1 billion. However, the most traded stocks by volume were FCMB (33.5m units), ACCESS (30.4m units), and ZENITH (25.1m units) while GUARANTY (N506.3m), ZENITH (N418.0m) and MTNN (N322.0m) led by value.

In a further drag, market performance across sectors was mixed as 2 of the 6 indices covered gained, 2 lost and 2 closed flat. The Insurance and Consumer Goods indices rose 1.3 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively due to buying interest in WAPIC (+9.1%), AIICO (+4.7%), FLOURMILL (+1.5%) and CADBURY (+4.2%).

On the other hand, the Banking and Oil & Gas indices lost 0.4 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively on account of sell pressures in ZENITH (-1.8%), ETI (-2.5%) and OANDO (-2.1%). Finally, the Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices closed flat.

Meanwhile, the investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.5x from the 0.9x recorded previously as 17 stocks gained against the 11 that lost. The top gainers were INTBREW (+10.0%), WAPIC (+9.1%) and NPFMCRFBK (+8.3%) while TRIPPLEG (-9.1%), CAVERTON (-8.6%) and DANGSUGAR (-5.9%) lost the most.