Bears returned to the stock market last week, deflating value by N20.5 billion for market capitalisation to berth at N20.6 trillion.
This is just as AIRTELAF announced the closing of the first Airtel Money Minority Investment transaction worth $150.0 million by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
The benchmark index closed in the red on three of the five trading sessions. Consequently, the NGX All-Share Index fell by 0.1 per cent week-on-week (w/w) with the Year-to-Date (YTD) loss worsening to -2.0 per cent as market capitalisation decreased by N20.5 billion w/w to N20.6 trillion.
Activity level weakened as average volume and value traded declined by 46.2 per cent and 2.6 per cent to 280.6 million units and N3.2 billion respectively.
TRANSCORP (48.6 million units), COURTVILLE (41.4 million units), and FBNH (30.8 million units) were the top traded stocks by volume while NESTLE (N3.9 billion), MTNN (₦pN953.2 million), and ZENITH (N563.4 million) led by value.
Performance across the sector was bearish as five of six indicators under our coverage closed in the red. The Consumer Goods index led losers, down 6.3 per cent w/w following price depreciation in NESTLE (-9.1 per cent), CADBURY (-5.6 per cent), and FLOURMILL (-4.8 per cent).
Following closely were the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices, which fell by 1.2 per cent and 1.0 per cent w/w respectively on account of price decline in TOTAL (-2.0 per cent), OANDO (-1.0 per cent), LINKASSURE (-4.8 per cent), and MBENEFIT (-2.9 per cent). The Banking and AFR-ICT indices dipped by 0.8 per cent and three basis points (bps) w/w on the back of sell pressure on ACCESS (-1.1 per cent), UBA (-0.7 per cent), and MTNN (-0.1 per cent). On the flip side, the Industrial Goods index rose 1.9 per cent w/w due to buying interest in DANGCEM (+3.3 per cent) and WAPCO (+1.8 per cent).
Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio), weakened to 1.0x from the 1.1x recorded last week as 32 stocks advanced against 31 stocks that declined.
The top performing stocks for the week were HONYFLOUR (+46.3 per cent), PHARMDEK (+44.5 per cent), and COURTVILLLE (+29.2 per cent) while MEYER (-66.1 per cent), SCOA (-18.5 per cent) and FTNCOCOA (-9.1 per cent) were the worst performing stocks.
Meanwhile, AIRTELAF announced the closing of the first Airtel Money Minority Investment transaction worth $150.0 million by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). This is part of its effort to raise $500.0 million to reduce the group’s debt and invest in network and sales infrastructure in respective operating companies. The new amount has now brought the total amount raised by the company to $375.0 million, having earlier raised $225.0 million from TPG and Master card.
