Sell-offs drive Nigerian stocks to biggest one-day loss in 8 months as index goes down 3.5%
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
A raft of stock sell-offs by investors saw Nigerian stock market record its biggest one-day loss in eight months on Wednesday as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index went down by 3.5 percent to close at 32,292.79 points.
The day’s performance worsened the year-to-date losses which posted a negative –15.6 percent with N422.2 billion wiped off market capitalization, dropping to N11.8 trillion.
Sell-offs in DANGCEM (-5.8%), STANBIC (-8.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-4.6%) and ACCESS (-8.6%) largely contributed to Wednesday’s bearish performance.
However, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded spiked 63.9 percent and 334.0 percent to 246.9 million units and N6.9 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were ACCESS (46.2 million), FBNH (22.6 million) and TRANSCORP (19.7 million) while the top traded stocks by value were DANGCEM (N3.9 billion), NESTLE (N748.0 million) and GUARANTY (N519.2 million).
The Oil & Gas index closed the day’s session as the lone gainer amidst an overwhelming bearish performance, thanks to gains in SEPLAT (+0.6%) and FORTE (+4.4%) that drove the index 0.4 percent higher.
On the flip-side, the industrial and banking indices fell 3.9 percent and 2.8 percent respectively, following sell pressures in DANGCEM (-5.8%), CCNN (-9.9%), STANBIC (-8.9%) and ACCESS (-8.6%).
The consumer goods index trailed as continued sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-4.6%) and profit-taking in NESTLE (-0.4%) pulled the index down by 1.6 percent.
Similarly, the insurance index closed 1.4 percent lower, on the back of losses in NEM (-3.2%) and AIICO (-6.7%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.3x from 0.5x recorded on Tuesday as 10 stocks advanced against 37 stocks that declined.
Out performing stocks for the day were LAWUNION (+9.1%), SKYEBANK (+8.9%) and JAIZBANK (+6.0%) while UNIVINSURE (-10.0%), CCNN (-9.9%) and FIDELITY (-9.6%) led laggards.
Following the heavyweight burden of bearish performance in recent trading sessions, equities market analysts at Afrinvest are anticipating a possible rebound before the close of the week as
investors buy the dip for stocks with attractive entry prices as witnessed in GUARANTY (+0.3%).
The analysts however noted that such possible rebound do not change their near-term bearish outlook on the market.