“We believe the current bearish sentiment will continue till midweek, however, we expect investor’s bargain hunting activities on some oversold bellwether securities to buoy market performance from Wednesday. This is how analysts at Afrinvest Research summarized the 8th consecutive week bearish trend at the market.
Stocks Monday extended losses from last week’s trading sessions as the benchmark index, the NSEASI, dipped 0.72 percent – its 8th consecutive daily decline – to settle at 39,040.44 points. Year-to-date (YTD) return further moderated to 2.1 percent. Consequently, market capitalization lost N106.9 billion to close at N14.1 trillion.
The days performance was largely dictated by sell pressures in banking stocks – GUARANTY (-2.3%), ZENITH (-2.1%) and FBNH (-4.6%). Activity level equally softened as volume and value traded declined 24.9 percent and 44.8 percent to 222.3 million units and N1.6 billion respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were AIICO (40.8m), ACCESS (27.4m) and FBNH (26.5m) while the top traded stocks by value were ACCESS (N292.1m), FBNH (N245.6m) and ZENITH (N238.3m).
In line with market performance, sector performance was bearish as all five major indices closed southwards. The industrial goods index led laggards down 2.1 percent, on the back of selloffs in WAPCO (-4.9%) and CAP (-5.3%), which outweighed gains in DANGCEM (+0.4%).
Similarly, the Banking and Insurance indices shed 2.0 percent and 1.1% respectively as sell pressures in GUARANTY (-2.3%), ZENITH (-2.1%), WAPIC (-7.7%) and LINKASSU (-4.8%) dragged both indices. Furthermore, the consumer goods index lost 0.1 percent as price depreciation in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.4%) and DANGFLOUR (-3.9%) offset gains in FLOURMILLS (+2.0%) and DANGSUGAR (+0.3%) while the oil & gas index fell 2bps due to losses in 11PLC (-4.6%) and OANDO (-4.8%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) remained flat at 0.3x as 10 stocks advanced against 35 stocks that declined. HMARKINS (+6.7%), ETERNA (+4.9%) and IKEJAHOTEL (+4.7%) led the gainers on the day while FCMB (-9.1%), JAPAULOIL (-8.3%) and WAPIC (-7.7%) declined the most. BusinessAM
