NSE LIVE! Equities open negative as sell pressure persists

The Nigerian equities market reopened on Monday with continuing downtrend as investors showed less appetite for quoted shares despite the fact that several stocks are trading at their lowest prices in many years.

With nearly three decliners for every advancer, the market situation at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) indicated widespread apathy across the sectors. The two main indices at the Exchange, the All Share Index (ASI) and aggregate market value of all quoted equities, indicated average day-on-day decline of 0.06 per cent, equivalent to a net capital loss of N5 billion. The net capital loss was moderated by the gains recorded by large-cap stocks such as Guaranty Trust Bank, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated and United Bank for Africa (UBA).

The ASI, a value-based index that tracks prices of all quoted shares, slipped from its opening index of 25,333.39 points to close at 25,318.41 points. Aggregate market value of all quoted companies on the NSE also dropped marginally from N8.721 trillion to close at N8.716 trillion. With the decline, the average year-to-date return worsened slightly to -11.6 per cent.

Most sectoral indices also closed in the negative. The NSE Insurance Index dropped by 1.1 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Indexdeclined by 0.4 per cent. The NSE Consumer Goods Index dipped by 0.01 per cent while the NSE Industrial Goods Index closed flat. However, the NSE Banking Index inched up by 0.24 per cent.

Forte Oil led 21 other losers with a loss of N3.14 to close at N59.66. UAC of Nigeria followed with a loss of 85 kobo to close at N16.15. Total Nigeria dropped by 40 kobo to N245.45. Zenith Bank declined by 30 kobo to N13.50. Stanbic IBTC Holdings dropped by 21 kobo to close at N14.44. Oando lost 19 kobo to close at N3.80.

Africa Prudential Registrars and Access Bank declined by 14 kobo each to close at N2.78 and N5.54 respectively while UACN Property Development Company dropped by 12 kobo to close at N2.35 per share.

Read also: NSE LIVE! High-cap stocks halt equities’ recovery

There were only eight gainers. Mobil Oil Nigeria led the contrarian stocks with a gain of N10.44 to close at N219.44. Guaranty Trust Bank followed with a gain of 38 kobo to close at N21.89. Ecobank added 30 kobo to close at N9.80. Nascon Allied Industries rose by 16 kobo to close at N7. Eterna added 13 kobo to close at N2.98. Fidson Healthcare rose by 6.0 kobo to close at N1.46. Fidelity Bank chalked up 3.0 kobo to close at 82 kobo while UBA inched up by 2.0 kobo to close at N4.32 per share.

Total turnover was above average with the exchange of 202.43 million shares valued at N1.62 billion in 2,558 deals. The most active stock was Wema Bank with 75.36 million shares valued at N39.19 million. Access Bank followed with a turnover of 22.9 million shares valued at N131.57 million while Zenith Bank placed third with 14.8 million shares worth N199.7 million.

“As market sentiment remains weak with no cheering news to drive performance, we expect the market to remain soft in the days ahead,” analysts at Afrinvest Securities stated.

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