NSE LIVE! Equities hibernate as demand drops

After running an all-week negative trading sessions last week, the Nigerian equities market reopened on Monday with a bit of exhaustion as investors await the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which started its two-day meeting on Monday.

Benchmark indices at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed a slowdown in demand as turnover dropped below average to 112 million shares, in spite of the substantial depreciation in share prices. But the gap between the decliners and advancers narrowed with 17 losers to 13 gainers.

The All Share Index (ASI), the value-based index that tracks prices at the stock market, declined by 0.15 per cent to close at 25,499.00 points as against its opening index of 25,537.54 points. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities dropped by N13 billion from N8.791 trillion to close at N8.778 trillion.

With declines in the past seven trading sessions, the average year-to-date return worsened to -10.97 per cent. Most sectoral indices still showed widespread losses across the sectors. The NSE Insurance Index dropped by 0.6 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Index declined by 0.36 per cent. The NSE Banking Index slipped by 0.6 per cent while the NSE Consumer Goods Index slipped by 0.1 per cent. However, the NSE Industrial Goods Index inched up by 0.01 per cent.

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Oil majors led the decliners with Total Nigeria dropping by N7 to close at N269.03. Mobil Oil Nigeria followed with a loss of N4.99 to close at N190.01. Dangote Sugar Refinery dropped by 32 kobo to close at N6.16. International Breweries and Stanbic IBTC Holdings lost 30 kobo each to close at N19.50 and N15.50 while Ecobank Transnational Incorporated declined by 20 kobo to close at N9.80.

Total turnover was below average with the exchange of 112.43 million shares worth N858.54 million in 2,532 deals. Low-priced stocks topped the activities’ chart. Transnational Corporation of Nigeria was the most active stock with 19.9 million shares valued at N13.56 million. Skye Bank followed with a turnover of 14.1 million shares valued at N7.13 million while Diamond Bank recorded a turnover of 10.1 million shares valued at N9.2 million.

“Weak macroeconomic data as well as high discount rate remains the major drag to market performance and we expect sentiment to remain anchored on macroeconomic policy responses, particularlyon foreign exchange management, to the economic recession,” analysts at Afrinvest Securities stated.

On the positive side, Flour Mills of Nigeria led the gainers with a gain of 80 kobo to close at N17. Transcorp Hotels followed with a gain of 26 kobo to close at N5.51. African Prudential Registrars added 10 kobo to close at N2.65. Cutix rose by 9.0 kobo to N1.98 while Dangote Flour Mills inched up by 7.0 kobo to close at N3.80 per share.

 

 

 

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