Bears maintain grip on Nigerian stocks as benchmark index dips 0.13%

The bears at the Nigerian equities market maintained a firm grip in Monday’s trading session as benchmark index, the NSEASI declined 13bps to settle at 35,399.28 points while year-to-date (YTD) loss further dipped to -7.4 percent.

As a result, market capitalization lost N17.0 billion in value to close at N12.9 trillion.

The day’s negative performance was largely driven by selloffs in UBA (-3.2%), GUINNESS (-4.3%), GUARANTY (-0.5%) and ZENITH (-0.6%) – stocks with a large weight on the index.

On the flip side, activity level was mixed as volume traded fell 16.9 percent to 160.4m units while value traded improved 9.0 percent to N2.2 billion.

UBA (30.6m), FBNH (14.0m) and GUARANTY (13.9m) were the top traded stocks by volume while GUARANTY (N536.9bn), ZENITH (N291.6bn) and UBA (N288.4bn) were the top traded stocks by value.

In spite of the improved interest in banking stocks last week, the index emerged the biggest loser in the day’s trading session, shedding 0.8 percent as losses in UBA (-3.2%), GUARANTY (-0.5%) and ZENITH (-0.6%) pulled the index lower.

Similarly, the insurance and oil & gas indices followed suit, declining 0.5 percent and 0.3 percent respectively on the back of price depreciation in NEM (-5.4%), AIICO (-5.6%) and 11PLC (-2.6%). Likewise, the consumer and industrial goods indices closed in the red, albeit flattish, down 1bp apiece.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio), contracted to 0.5x from 0.6x recorded the previous Friday as 14 stocks advanced against 26 stocks that declined.

The top three performers for the day were ETERNA (+9.9%), UACN (+7.7%), COURTVILLE (+5.0%) while UNIONDAC (-9.1%), MBENEFIT (-9.1%), LIVESTOCK (-8.7%) led laggards.

“We expect the bearish performance to be sustained till midweek as investors continue to take profit following some unimpressive H1:2018 releases,” said analysts at Afrinvest Research.