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NSE LIVE! Equities hit low as stocks lose N332b

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in from Success Allantee …
Most quoted companies at the Nigerian stock market will open on Monday at their lowest price range in the past one year as sustained price depreciation continued to lower market values of quoted companies. Several headline stocks across major sectors of the economy will open exactly at their lowest prices in 52 weeks while many others will be trading around their lowest prices.
The crashing to lowest prices of several major stocks further exacerbated the largely negative performance of some sectors, especially insurance and information and communications sectors, where most stocks have been trading at their nominal value of 50 kobo.
The sustained price depreciation in the first three trading sessions of the week overwhelmed latter-day rally in the last two trading session, leaving the stock market with average week-on-week decline of 3.56 per cent last week, representing some N332 billion loss in earlier capital gains. The negative closing position further depressed average investors’ return with the average-year-to-date return now at -16.86 per cent.
The All Share Index (ASI), the value-based composite index that tracks prices of all quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), closed the week at 28,814.62 points as against its week’s opening index of 29,878.33 points. Aggregate market value of all quoted companies also dropped from its week’s opening value of N10.241 trillion to close the week at N9.909 trillion.
Several leading stocks will open on Monday exactly at their lowest prices including leading confectionery company, Cadbury Nigeria, at N28.56; Flour Mills of Nigeria, the most capitalised flour-miller now trading at a year low of N23.76; Union Bank of Nigeria, N6; Seplat Petroleum Development Company, the oil exploration company that had rallied to a high of N700 but now trading a low of N233.04; real estate leader, UACN Property Development Company, which trades at a low of N7.50 and May and Banker Nigeria, a World Health Organisation (WHO)-certified pharmaceutical company, which is at a low of N1.18 per share.
Other stocks trading exactly at a one-year low included Okomu Oil Palm Plc, N19.60; Livestock Feeds, N1.54; AG Leventis, 95 kobo; International Breweries, N16.17; Honeywell Flour Mills, N2.27; Nascon Allied Industries, N5.20; Northern Nigeria Flour Mills, N10.47; Union Dicon Salt, N11.84; Africa Prudential Registrars, N2.25; Cement Company of Northern Nigeria, N8.32; DN Meyer, 73 kobo; BOC Gases, N4.62; Eterna, N1.67; RT Briscoe, 51 kobo; Transcorp Hotels, N7.86; Tourist Company of Nigeria, N3.51; Academy Press, 73 kobo and Learn Africa, now trading at a low of 95 kobo, among others.
Dozens of other stocks are trading around their lowest prices including the three stocks that were last week designated as premium stocks-Dangote Cement, the most capitalised quoted stock; Zenith Bank, the second most capitalised banking stock and FBN Holdings, Nigeria’s oldest financial services group. Others in this category included leading stocks such as Guinness Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, second most capitalised quoted stock; Access Bank, Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank, Sterling Bank, AXA Mansard Insurance, FCMB Group, UBA Capital, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria, Pharma-Deko, Portland Paints and Products Nigeria and Oando among others.
In the insurance sector, NSE’s most populous sector, about three-quarters of quoted insurance stocks have been stagnant at their nominal price of 50 kobo.
Market-wide price trend analysis last week indicated that there were only 13 gainers against 65 losers, still highlighting the depression that has seen stocks grappling with new lowest values. In the previous week, there were 11 advancers against 61 decliners. A total of 112 stocks were unchanged last week as against 118 stocks that closed flat in the previous week.
Total turnover stood at 2.05 billion shares worth N17.87 billion in 21,762 deals. The financial services sector, dominated by banks, remained the most active with a turnover of 1.73 billion shares valued at N12 billion in 12,855 deals; representing 84.5% and 67.2% of the total equity turnover volume and value respectively. The conglomerates sector followed with a turnover of 153.48 million shares worth N368 million in 1,269 deals. The third place was occupied by the consumer goods sector with 77.577 million shares worth N3.379 billion in 3,496 deals.

Read also: NSE LIVE! Equities break downtrend amidst bargain-hunting

The trio of Zenith International Bank, United Bank for Africa and Access Bank were the most active jointly accounting for 851.98 million shares worth N6.65 billion in 4,894 deals, representing 41.54.% and 37.19% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Cross-sectoral price analysis showed widespread declines across the market with most tracked sectoral and group indices closing in the red. There was stronger selling pressure in the consumer goods sector. The NSE Consumer Goods Index recorded the highest above-average decline of 6.22 per cent. The NSE 30 Index, which tracks the 30 most capitalised stocks, dropped by 4.54 per cent. The NSE Pension Index, which tracks pre-qualified stocks for pension investments, dropped by 2.41 per cent. The NSE Premium Index and the NSE Main-Board Index, which were introduced last week, declined by 3.93 per cent and 3.22 per cent respectively. The NSE Banking Index declined by 3.24 per cent while the NSE Insurance Index and NSE Industrial Goods Index dropped by 3.08 per cent and 3.44 per cent respectively.

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