The Nigerian equities market, which began the year on a positive note closed negative Wednesday despite rally in small and mid-cap stocks. Specifically, sell-offs in DANGCEM dragged the all-share index 0.2 percent lower to settle at 38,187.28 points from 38,264.79 points previously.
To this end, market year-to-date gain retreated to -0.1 percent while market capitalization decreased by N27.6 billion to N13.6 trillion. The day’s performance according to analysts was influenced largely by losses in DANGCEM (-3.0%).
Ex- DANGCEM the benchmark index would have appreciated 95 basis points (bps). Activity level softened as volume and value traded fell 137.3 percent and 18.8 percent to 589.6 million units and N2.1 billion units respectively.
Sector performance was broadly positive as all indices save for the oil & gas index, which shed 1.4 percent due to price depreciation in MOBIL (-9.2%), closed positive.
Oil trades near highest level since 2015 amid political unrest in Opec’s third-biggest producer
On the flipside, the insurance index appreciated the most, up 1.5 percent following gains in MANSARD (+5.0%) and NEM (+4.4%). The banking index trailed, rising 1.2 percent as bargain hunting in ETI (+2.9%), GUARANTY (+0.6%) and FIDELITY (+8.5%) buoyed the index.
In the same vein, the Industrial and Consumer Goods indices grew 0.6% and 0.5% as investors took position in WAPCO (+5.0%), CCNN (+3.7%), DANGSUGAR (+7.4%) and DANGFLOUR (+5.0%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 3.4x from 2.3x recorded yesterday consequent on 37 stocks advancing against 11 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks were DIAMOND (+9.6%), FCMB (+9.5%) and FIDELITY (+8.5%) while MOBIL (-9.1%), NEIMETH (-8.0%) and CUTIX (-5.0%) were the worst performers. Despite today’s negative performance, investor sentiment strengthened hence we expect to see a rebound in the market in subsequent trading sessions.
