The local bourse’s performance turned bearish as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 2.3 per centWeek-on-Week (W-o-W) to settle at 29,270.95 points following losses on all trading days.
Accordingly, market capitalisation fell to N12.9trillion as investors lost N303.7billion while Year-to-Day (YTD) loss worsened to -6.9 per cent.
The beers have an impressive acting as average volume and value traded declined by 42.1 per cent and 64.7 per cent to 298.4million units and N1.8billion respectively as buying interest continued to wane. The most traded stocks by volume were UBA (82.9m units), WAPCO (71.1m units) and ZENITH (71.1m units) while GUARANTY (N1.6bn), ZENITH (N1.4bn) and WAPCO (N933m) led by value.
At the start of the week, the market resumed on a negative note as ASI declined 1.2 per cent to settle at 29,614 basis points, on the back of losses in GTBank, Dangote Cement and Nigerian Breweries.
“The negative trend persisted for the remaining 4 days, as ASI declined -0.7 per cent, -0.1 per cent, -0.3 per cent and -0.1 per cent respectively due to sell pressures in Dangote Cement, Zenith bank, Presco and UBA”, said Afrinvest.
Sector performance was poor as all indices under our coverage recorded losses W-o-W. The Banking index led the laggards with -5.4 per cent, due to sell pressures in GTBank (-11.9 per cent) and WEMA (-7.6 per cent). The Consumer Goods index trailed, with -2.3 per cent on the back of losses in International Breweries (-3.2) and Nigerian Breweries (-6.8).
Similarly, the Industrial Goods index shed 2.6 per cent following sell-offs in Julius Berger (-8.9 per cent) and Dangote Cement (-3.8 per cent) while sell pressures in MOBIL (-7.1 per cent) and ETERNA (-
7.6 per cent) drove the Oil & Gas index down -0.7 per cent.The Insurance Index also declined -1.0 per cent W-o-W on the back of losses in MBENEFIT (-13.0 per cent) and WAPIC (-7.0 per cent).
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.5x from 1.1x recorded last week, signaling a decline in market sentiment as
20 stocks advanced against the 31 that declined. The top performing stocks were ACADEMY (+48.1 per cent), CCNN (+15.5 per cent) and WAPCO (+14.2 per cent) while MBENEFIT (-13 per cent),
GUARANTY (-11.9 per cent) and PRESCO (-10.0 per cent) led the losers. We believe that the bearish run would continue as investors maintain a risk-off approach towards investing
in the domestic equities market. In the coming week, we expect Airtel listing on the bourse to drive activity level.
