High-cap stocks drag equities down amidst bargain-hunting

Investors showed increased appetite for quoted stocks on Wednesday as most stocks rode on the back of the increased bargain-hunting to close at higher prices. But losses suffered a handful of highly capitalised stocks undermined the overall market position.

With 31 gainers to 20 losers, the sentiments at the stock market on Wednesday were generally positive. Bu the decline of major stocks such as Dangote Cement, Total Nigeria, Lafarge Africa, Flour mills of Nigeria and Guinness Nigeria coloured the overall market position negative.

The All Share Index (ASI)-the value-based common index that tracks prices of all quoted companies, slipped from its opening index of 25,646.56 points to close at 25,630.62 points, representing a day-on-day decline of 0.06 per cent.

Aggregate market value of all quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) also dropped marginally by N2 billion from N8.822 trillion to close at N8.820 trillion. The decline, though modest, nudged the negative average year-to-date return to -10.51 per cent.

Read also: NSE LIVE! Equities rally on Banks, FMCGs gains

Most sectoral indices closed on the upside, underlining the widespread bargain-hunting for quoted equities. The NSE Banking Index and the NSE Insurance Index rose by 0.6 per cent. The NSE Consumer Goods Index improved by 0.1 per cent while the NSE Oil and Gas inched up by 0.01 per cent. However, the NSE Industrial Goods Index declined by 0.7 per cent.

Conoil led the gainers with a gain of 83 kobo to close at N18.10. Union Dicon Salt followed with a gain of 61 kobo to close at N12.89. Nigerian Breweries added 49 kobo to close at N118. Tiger Branded Consumer Goods rose by 46 kobo to close at N5.05. Guaranty Trust Bank rallied 34 kobo to close at N18.35 while Cement Company of Northern Nigeria rose by 33 kobo to close at N7.04 per share.

“We believe that the rally in some of the small cap stocks may be as a result of speculative positioning on the part of investors. We however opine that the benchmark index will trend sideways in the coming sessions on profit taking activities by short-term investors,” Afrinvest Securities-a Lagos-based dealer at the Exchange, stated.

On the negative side, Total Nigeria led the losers with a loss of N1.59 to close at N150.41 as government removed subsidy on premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol. Dangote Cement, NSE’s most capitalised stock followed with a loss of N1.31 to close at N162.52. Flour Mills of Nigeria declined by N1.23 to close at N23.76. Lafarge Africa dropped by 50 kobo to N69. University Press lost 27 kobo to close at N5.15. Guinness Nigeria dropped by 19 kobo to close at N94.80 while Eterna slipped by 14 kobo to close at N2.76 per share.

Total turnover stood at 198.45 million shares valued at N1.60 billion in 3,538 deals. Banking stocks dominated top activities chart. The three most active stocks were FCMB  Group, with 25.66 million shares; Guaranty T rust Bank, 20.95 million shares and UBA, which recorded turnover of 15.78 million shares.

 

 

RipplesNigeria …without borders, without fears

 

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now