NSE LIVE! Corporate earnings fail to lift equities

In from Success Allantee …
Nigerian equities again closed in the red yesterday as impressive earnings by first-tier banks failed to quicken investors’ appetite for quoted shares. On a day Nigeria’s most capitalised bank, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, and another tier-one bank, Access Bank declared interim cash dividends, average loss at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) widened to 0.98 per cent.
The benchmark index for the Nigerian stock market, the All Share Index (ASI)-a composite value-based index that tracks prices of all quoted equities, dropped below its psychological point of 30,000 points to close at 29,747.57 points as against its opening index of 30,042.38 points.
Aggregate market value of all quoted companies indicated a loss of N101 billion at the closing value of N10.196 trillion, as against its opening value of N10.297 trillion. The decline further worsened the negative average-year-to-date return, which rose to -14.17 per cent yesterday.
Guaranty Trust Bank and Access Bank declared interim dividend of 25 kobo per share on a largely impressive half-year earnings report. Many analysts said the performance of the two banks might help to temporarily moderate the decline at the stock market.
“We expect market performance in the coming session to be driven by earnings releases submitted by Guaranty Trust Bank and Access Bank as noted above. However, following the sustained poor performance of the market, we maintain our recommendation of exploring medium to long term views towards investment,” Afrinvest Securities stated in post-trading review.

Read also: Losers overwhelm Dangote as equities relapse

Losses by highly capitalised stocks orchestrated the decline at the stock market. Seplat Petroleum Development Company led the 27-stock losers’ list with a drop of N12.90 to close at N245.30. Dangote Cement, the most capitalised stocks, succumbed to profit-taking trading, dropping by N6 to close at N177. Guinness Nigeria declined by N5 to close at N116. Total Nigeria dropped by N1.80 to close at N152.20. Okomu Oil Palm lost N1.14 to close at N21.71. Ashaka Cement declined by N1 to close at N22. Lafarge Africa slipped by 61 kobo to close at N100.02. Vitafoam Nigeria lost 25 kobo to close at N5.60. Champion Breweries declined by 24 kobo to close at N4.26 while Zenith Bank dropped by 20 kobo to close at N15.80 per share.
On the gainers’ side, Nestle Nigeria led 15 other stocks with a gain of N42 to close at N882. Flour Mills of Nigeria rose by 59 kobo to close at N26. Access Bank added 20 kobo to close at N4.27. Skye Bank gained 14 kobo to close at N1.90 while Forte Oil rose by 10 kobo to close at N219.
The market also witnessed above-average turnover was large-ticket transactions drove aggregate turnover to 2.87 billion shares valued at N5.28 billion in 4,017 deals. Financial services sector accounted for 2.84 billion shares worth N3.87 billion in 2,543 deals.
The market turnover was driven by acquisition of major equity stake in Equity Assurance by a foreign investor, Sunu Assurances Vie Cote D’Ivorie. A total of 2.53 billion ordinary shares of Equity Assurance worth N1.26 billion were swapped in 109 deals.

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