NSE LIVE! GTBank in unusual N8b trade as high-cap stocks cloud equities

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) Plc saw unusually large turnover yesterday at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as investors staked N7.75 billion on the shares of the commercial bank.
In a market that generally showed strong upbeat with large turnover and higher advancers, GTBank’s turnover drew attention of market pundits. GTBank was atop the activities chart with a turnover of 3335.6 million shares valued at N7.75 billion in 192 deals.

The turnover on GTBank yesterday represented 1.14 per cent of the total outstanding shares of the bank. The selling pressure dropped the share price of the bank by 8.0 kobo to close at N23.12. While market analysts agreed turnover was unusual given the covetousness for the bank’s shares and its stability, most analysts did not believe there were any underlying unusual factors for the high turnover other than the market sentiments.

Access Bank trailed GTBank on the activities chart with a turnover of 335.37 million shares valued at N1.51 billion in 264 deals.

Founding directors of Access Bank were former executives at GTBank and the former has continued to mirror the latter. It was unclear as at press time if the transactions on the banks were related or coincidental.

Extant rules at the Nigerian stock market only regard equity holdings of five per cent or above as significant, which ownership and circumstances of trade must be disclosed to the regulators. However, regulators may demand for clarification on any suspicious transaction, irrespective of the volume or value.

The stock market generally saw above-average voluminous transactions yesterday. Total turnover reached 1.125 billion shares valued at N14.68 billion in 2,720 deals. Beco Petroleum placed third on the activities chart with a turnover of 179.36 million shares worth N89.68 million in two deals. The deals on Beco Petroluem were cross deals, according to market sources, implying that the transactions had been premeditated and agreed on prior to the formal exchange at the stock market.

The overall market situation improved considerably with more advancers than decliners, but losses by the two most capitalised stocks at the stock market-Dangote Cement and Nigerian Breweries, pushed the overall benchmark indices to the negative. Dangote Cement lost N1 to close at N162 while Nigerian Breweries dropped by N1.02 to close at N135. Besides, other top losers were Seven-Up Bottling Company, which dropped by N5.95 to close at N185.06; Ecobank Transnational Incorporated which declined by 35 kobo to N18.15 and Lafarge Africa, which lost 25 kobo to close at N93.75 per share.

With these, aggregate market value of all quoted equities dropped marginally from N10.029 trillion to close at N10.027 trillion. The All Share Index (ASI), the benchmark index at the NSE, slipped by 0.03 per cent from 29,175.35 points to close at 29,168.04 points, nudging the negative average year-to-date return to -15.84 per cent.

“Despite the marginal weakness in the All Share Index today, the positive sentiment reflects that some bargain hunting activities are still taking place in the market.

Although macroeconomic fundamentals have considerably weakened which reflected in 3rd quarter earnings, most of the sell-offs are already overdone and prices are attractive,” said analysts at Afrinvest Securities.

Analysts however noted that the cautiousness of investors towards the market now suggests most of the upsides may not be realized in the short term but in the medium to long term as fiscal policy direction gradually unfolds to lift consumer and investor confidence.

There were 25 gainers against 15 losers. Unilever Nigeria led the advancers with a gain of N1.57 to close at N33. UAC of Nigeria followed with a gain of N1.37 to close at N29.10. PZ Cussons Nigeria rose by N1.18 to close at N25.50. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria added 80 kobo to close at N8.73 while Oando continued its recovery with a gain of 78 kobo to close at N8.50 per share.

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