By Charles Abuede Naira trades flat at I&E, CBN official windows
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The Nigerian equities market continues its staggering movement on the back of mixed sentiment as investors anticipate the release of audited company financials due to start hitting the market before the end of the month. Despite some hints of gains, the bears regained their dominance within the space, as investors continue to sell down on counters in the consumer goods and banking sectors.
Market investors lost N41.3 billion on Tuesday following the bearish sentiment in the domestic bourse which returned to drive the benchmark index by 19 basis points to 40,494.35 points on the back of sell-offs in Stanbic IBTC (-4.4%), Nigerian Breweries (-3.3%), and Zenith Bank(-0.6%). Consequently, the market year to date return declined to 0.6 per cent while market capitalisation inched lower by N41.3 billion to settle at N21.184 trillion from the N21.225 trillion on the previous day.
On the contrary, there was a positive improvement in the market activity level as volume and value traded advanced 72.8 per cent and 166.3 per cent respectively to 356.4 million units and N5.8 billion. The most traded stocks by volume were GTBank (46.2million units), First Bank Holdings (35.3million units) and Dangote Sugar (26.8million units) while GTBank (N1.4billion), Seplat Petroleum (N1.2billion) and Zenith Bank (N652.6 million) led by value.
Further afield, mixed market performance was seen as 3 indices out of 6 closed lower on Tuesday. On sectoral performance, the insurance and the consumer goods indices lost the most with 1.5 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively resulting from declines in WapicPlc(-8.3%), Cornerstone Plc (-10.0%) and Nigerian Breweries (-3.3%). In the same way, the banking index inched lower by 0.3 per cent following losses in Stanbic IBTC (-4.4%) and Zenith Bank (-0.6%). On the other hand, the oil & gas and industrial goods indices recorded an uptick by 1.1 per cent and 1 basis point, apiece, as Seplat Petroleum (+0.8%) and Chemic and Allied Products (+5.6%) ticked higher. Nevertheless, the ICT index closed unchanged from the previous close.
Furthermore, there was a weakened sentiment from market investors on Tuesday to 1.1x from the 2.3x recorded on Monday as 22 stocks took profit against the 20 that lost. However, topping the gainers’ chart were Learn Africa (+9.3%), ArdovaPlc (+9.1%) and Multiverse (+8.3%), while Cornerstone Insurance (-10%), United Properties and Development Company (-10.0%) and Consolidated Health Insurance Plc (-9-5%) were atop the […]