Equities market halts two-day bullish trend, dips 1.1% on selloffs in blue chips

The Nigerian equity market declined by 1.1 percent Thursday after two consecutive days of 1.15 percent gains.

The day’s downturn was as a result of sell offs across big caps stocks such as Dangote Cement that fell 2.6 percent, Zenith Bank (-1.5%) and Guaranty Trust Bank (-0.9%).

The All Share Index (ASI) thus settled at 30,819.10 points while year-to-date loss worsened to -19.4 percent.

Investors wealth declined as market capitalisation fell N121.4 billion to close at N11.3 trillion but activity level  strengthened as volume and value traded rose by 41.4 percent and 7.8 percent respectively to close at 280.9 million units and N2.5 billion respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume were FBN Holdings (92.5m units), Diamond Bank (68.2m units) and Ikeja Hotel (34.4m units) while the top traded stocks by value were FBN Holdings (N707.3m), Guaranty (N507.8m), and Nigerian Breweries (N319.0m).

Performance across sectors closed bearish with 3 of 5 majo indices closing southwards. The industrial goods index closed as the worst performing index in today’s session as losses in Dangote Cement drove the index lower by 1.6 percent.

The banking and consumer goods index trailed shedding 0.8 percent and 0.3 percent respectively as sell pressures in Access Bank (-2.7%), Zenith (-1.5%), Vitafoam (-4.4%) and Unilever (-1.5%) weighed on both indices.

The oil & gas and insurance indices closed in the green as gains in Oando (+4.0%), Mutual Benefit (+9.5%) and AIICO Insurance (+6.1%) pulled both indices higher by 0.5 percent and 0.2 percent.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth weakened from Wednesday’s session as 17 stocks advanced against 22 decliners. The best performing stocks were Champion Breweries (+9.7%), Mutual Benefit (+9.5%) and Diamond Bank (+9.4%) while Niger Insurance (-9.1%), Lasaco Insurance (-6.9%) and AG Leventis (-6.9%) led the laggards.

Analysts at Afrinvest are anticipating bargain hunting in bellwethers om Friday to help drive a positive performance.