Nigerian bourse: Big caps push market to close positive despite declining turnover
Reporter
The Nigerian equities market Tuesday sustained positive sentiments for five consecutive trading sessions as big caps helped the bourse’s index to appreciate by 0.7 percent to close at 34,375.60 basis points, as against +0.96% appreciation recorded previously. Its year-to-date (YTD) returns stood at +27.91%.
Price appreciation in DANGCEM (+1.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.8%), INTBREW (+8.1%) and JBERGER (+10.2%) offset losses in ZENITH (-1.9%) and ACCESS (-2.1%).
Investors accumulated N83.3 billion as market capitalisation rose to N11.9tn. However, activity level declined as volume and value traded fell 18.7% and 26.0% to 392.2m and N4.2bn respectively.
TRANSCORP, ZENITHBANK and SKYEBANK were the most active to boost market turnover while ZENITHBANK and NB topped market value list.
Performance across sectors was mixed as three of five indices declined.
The Oil & Gas index declined the most, down 1.2% on account of losses in OANDO (-4.6%) and FORTE (-5.2%) while depreciation in MANSARD (-4.6%) and LINKASSU (-3.6%) drove the Insurance index 1.0% southwards.
The Banking index slid 0.7% due to profit taking in ZENITH (-1.9%) and ACCESS (-2.1%). On the flip side, the Industrial and Consumer Goods indices appreciated 1.3% and 1.1% on the back of gains in DANGCEM (+1.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.8%) respectively.
Investor sentiment as reflected by the market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio) declined to 0.9x (from 1.6x yesterday) – 25 advancers against 26 decliners.
The best performing stocks were MAYBAKER (+10.2%), CCNN (+10.2%) and JBERGER (+10.2%) while FORTE (-5.2%), FIDSON (-4.8%) and CHAMPION (-4.8%) recorded the worst performance.
In line with expectations, investors resorted to profit taking on some stocks – particularly in the Banking sector in today’s session.
Ambrose Omordion, chief operating officer, InvestData Ltd and capital market analyst, had on Monday said that the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) would be dominated by profit taking as investors await the 2017 budget implementation.
Omordion, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos said that the market would experience mixed performance due to profit taking.
Despite gains recorded in the benchmark index, moderation in market breadth suggests appetite could be waning as analysts expect more profit taking in sessions ahead.
This, however, is not expected to persist beyond the short term as investor sentiment remains largely driven by the positive developments in the macroeconomic space.