Elevated sell pressure on Nigerian stocks puts a stopper to 3-days bull’s run as index drops 0.1%
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
Nigeria’s equities market Tuesday halted a three-day bullish run which began last Thursday as elevated sell pressures impacted market performance. Consequently, the All Share Index (ASI) shed 0.1 percent to settle at 33,167.88 points while year-to-day loss increased marginally to -13.3%. Major drags to the performance were FBNH (-8.3%), ZENITH (-3.1%) and SEPLAT (-4.6%) while gains in DANGCEM (+1.7%) cushioned the losses recorded.
Market capitalisation also shed N10.3 billion to settle at N12.1 trillion. Activity level strengthened as volume and value traded spiked by 105.4 percent and 108.4 percent to 309.1 million units and N6.0 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were GUARANTY (57.6m), STERLING (57.0m), and FCMB (41.1m) while the top traded stocks by value were GUARANTY (N2.2bn), DANGCEM (N1.6bn) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N616.6m).
Amidst a bearish sector performance, the industrial goods index emerged the lone gainer for the day’s session as gains in DANGCEM (+1.7%) erased losses in WAPCO (-4.1%) to push the index higher by 2bps.
The oil & gas index led the negative performers as sell pressures in SEPLAT (-4.6%) and OANDO (-2.9%) dragged on the index shedding 2.6 percent.
The banking index trailed as losses in FBNH (-8.3%) and ZENITH (-3.1%) pulled the index southwards by 1.7 percent.
The insurance and consumer goods indices also closed in the red, shedding 34 basis points and 31 basis points respectively as losses in LINKASSURE (-4.6%), LASACO (-6.3%), INTBREW (-1.6%), and DANGSUGAR (-2.1%), pushed the indices lower.
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.7x from 0.9x recorded in yesterday’s session as 17 stocks advanced against 24 that declined.
The day’s best-performing stocks were PRESCO (+9.4%), STANBIC (+7.1%) and DIAMOND (+6.5%) while MEYER (-9.7%), DANGFLOUR (-9.5%) and REGALINS (-9.1%) led the laggards in today’s session.
“While we continue to maintain a near-term bearish outlook on the equities market, we anticipate a soft rebound in tomorrow’s (Wednesday) trading session,” said analysts at Afrinvest on Tuesday evening.