Equities market opens week on negative note as ASI down 0.13%

Trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) turned bearish on Monday to open the new week after recording gains in the last two trading sessions.

The negative performance, which was largely driven by sell-offs in bellwether stocks like Nigerian Breweries, Unilever Nigeria and Lafarge Wapco pulled the key performance index of the NSE, the All-Share Index (ASI) down by 0.13 percent to close at 32,413.48 points, while the year-to-date loss of the ASI worsened to 15.24 percent.

Specifically, equities investors lost a total of N16 billion during today’s session as market capitalization of listed equities, which opened at N11.85 trillion, dropped to N11.83 trillion.

Also, activity level decreased as volume and value of traded equities fell by 43.7 percent and 57.1 percent to 91.4 million units of shares and N960.9 million, respectively.

Read also: Nigerian govt admits nation in debt distress

Fidson Healthcare was the highest loser, recording 10 percent loss of value to close at N5.40 per share. Equity Assurance followed by dropping 9.09 percent to close at 20 Kobo per share, while Wapic Insurance also fell 9.09 percent to close at 40 Kobo per share.

UACN Property Development Company shed 8 percent to close at N1.61 per share, while Lafarge Wapco depreciated by 6.52 percent to close at N21.50 per share.

On the flipside, Axamansard Insurance led the gainers’ chart with 10 percent price gain to close at N1.98 per share. Forte Oil trailed with 9.88 percent appreciation to close at N22.25 per share, while National Salt Company of Nigeria rose by 7.57 percent to close at N19.90 per share.

NPF Micro-finance Bank gained 5.81 percent to close at N1.64 per share, while Livestock Feeds garnered 5.26 percent to close at 60 Kobo per share.

In spite of the bearishness, performance across the sectors was relatively positive as three out of five sectors tracked appreciated. NSE Consumer Goods and NSE Industrial Goods shed 0.7 percent and 1.9 percent, while NSE Banking, NSE Insurance and NSE Oil & Gas indices rose by 0.7 percent, 1.4 percent and 0.9 percent, respectively.

Performance at the Nigeria’s stock market has been relatively bearish lately over increasing investment opportunities in the United States (U.S.) owing to high interest rates and weakened sentiment ahead of the 2019 general elections.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had last week cautioned Nigeria over the reversal of capital flows from the nation, saying the normalization of interest rates in the U.S. which largely contributed to the reversal was still in its early stages.

 

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