NSE LIVE! Equities hit new low as average loss climbs to 18.20%

For investors in the Nigerian stock market, this is not the best of times to take stock of one’s investments. Quoted equities dropped further yesterday and hit a new low after sustained losses within the large part of the market pushed several stocks to their lowest prices in recent period.
The benchmark index at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)-the All Share Index (ASI)-a value-based index that tracks prices of all quoted companies, recorded a day-on-day decline of 0.64 per cent to close at 28,351.28 points as against its opening index of 28,532.81 points.
The decline yesterday, though lower than 1.07 per cent depreciation at the opening of the market on Monday, pushed the index to its lowest point in the past five trading session, underlining the sustained depreciation that has characterised the stock market in most part of this year.
With nearly two decliners for every advancer, aggregate market value of all quoted equities dropped from N9.808 trillion to close at N9.746 trillion, representing a loss of N62 billion. The decline further worsened the negative average year-to-date return at the stock market to -18.20 per cent.
In spite of the inauguration of the Ministers last week and good public rating of many members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the stock market has remained on the downtrend as investors continued to flood the market with open-market sell orders, underlining the preference to sell their shares at prevailing market prices.
Analysts meanwhile remained cautious about the market outlook, although they seemed to agree that the Nigerian equities have been substantially undervalued by the sustained downtrend and as such, offer good medium to long-term prospects for competitive returns.

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“Given the moderation in losses today, compared to yesterday, we expect some level of bargain-hunting in the session ahead. Nevertheless, short term fundamental investors will still continue to hold out whilst we maintain that investors trade cautiously especially for short term investments,” analysts at Afrinvest Securities stated.
Pricing trend analysis showed that highly capitalised stocks dominated the top losers’ list. Guinness Nigeria topped the 24-stock losers’ list with a loss of N6.74 to close at N128.24. Seplat Petroleum Development Company followed with a loss of N4 to close at N226. Nigerian Breweries declined by N2.55 to close at N122.46. PZ Cussons dropped by N1 to close at N25 per share. UACN Property Development Company declined by 70 kobo to close at N6.58. Berger Paints slipped by 48 kobo to close at N9.13. Stanbic IBTC Holdings lost 47 kobo to close at N19.38 while FBN Holdings dropped by 41 kobo to close at N5.04 per share.
Sectoral indices were all in the red, underlining the widespread selling sentiments. The NSE Consumer Goods Index recorded above-average decline of 1.3 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Index declined by 0.9 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index dropped by 0.5 per cent. The NSE Banking Index lost 20 basis points while the NSE Industrial Goods Index slipped by a basis point.
On the positive side, Seven-Up Bottling Company led 13 other contrarian stocks with a gain of N1.98 to close at N184.99. International Breweries placed a distant second with a gain of 30 kobo to close at N17. Dangote Sugar Refinery added 20 kobo to close at N6.50 per share. Portland Paints and Products Nigeria rose by 17 kobo to N3.70 while Ikeja Hotel garnered 12 kobo to close at N3.59 per share.
Total turnover stood at 130.07 million shares valued at N2.50 billion in 3,164 deals. FBN Holdings was the most active stock, by turnover volume, with a turnover of 18.92 million shares valued at N97.21 million in 439 deals. Guaranty Trust Bank followed with a turnover of 16.44 million shares valued at N372.83 million in 301 deals while Access Bank placed third with a turnover of 13.66 million shares worth N65.13 million in 167 deals.

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