Bears chase bulls out as market sheds N363bn in one week

Bears stormed the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) last week, destroying part of the progress the bulls have made, depleting the market with N363 billion, leaving the market capitalization at N21.8 trillion.

Aalysts say, sell-offs dominated trades all week. Investors were waiting in the wings to catch in on little gains made over time to sell at better prices.

The result is that the All-Share Index (ASI) fell 1.7 per cent week-on-week (w/w) to 41,709.09 points. Market capitalisation fell by N368.0 billion to N21.8 trillion while Yera-to-Date (YTD) return declined to 3.6 per cent.

In Africa, the Nigeria All-Share Index led laggards, down 1.7 per cent w/w. Similarly, Kenya’s NSE 20 and Mauritius’ SEMDEX indices lost 0.8 per cent and 0.3 per cent w/w respectively. Conversely, Ghana’s Composite index led gainers, up 1.4 per cent w/w following a £1.2 billion trade deal with UK worth. Likewise, Morocco’s Casablanca MASI and Egypt’s EGX 30 indices rose 0.7 per cent and 0.2 per cent w/w respectively.

Activity level improved as average volume and value traded rose 7.4 per cent and 6.4 per cent to 551.9 million units and N5.9 billion respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were UBN (313.1 million units), FBNH (219.6 million units) and TRANSCORP (199.7 million units) while GUARANTY led by value with (N6.1 billion), ZENITH (N3.5 billion) and UBN (N1.8 billion).

Performance across sectors was lacklustre as all indices under our coverage declined w/w. The Insurance index lost the most, down 6.0 per cent w/w due to price declines in LINKASSURE (-33.3 per cent) and AIICO (-13.6 per cent). Similarly, the Consumer Goods and Banking indices recorded losses of 3.2 per cent and 2.3 per cent w/w respectively due to sell-offs in NNFM (-10.6 per cent), FLOURMILL (-9.4 per cent), FIDELITY (-8.1 per cent), and ACCESS (-8.1 per cent).

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