NSE LIVE! Profit-taking halts equities’ rally

Nigerian equities turned negative on Tuesday as investors sought to take profits from the recent sustained rally at the stock market. With more than two losers to a gainer, the overall market situation was broadly on the downside.

The All Share Index (ASI)-the common value-based index that tracks prices of all quoted equities, dropped by 0.61 per cent to close at 26,655.48 points from its opening index of 26,818.77 points. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) declined from N9.229 trillion to  close at N9.173 trillion, representing a loss of N56 billion. Average year-to-date return thus built up to -6.94 per cent.

All sectoral indices, with the exception of the NSE Consumer Goods Index, also closed in the negative, underlining the spread of the downtrend that followed the extensive profit-taking. The NSE Oil & Gas Index depreciated by 3.4 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index slipped by 2.0 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index dropped by 1.4 per cent while the NSE Industrial Goods Index dropped by 0.03 per cent. However, the NSE Consumer Goods Index played the contrarian with a gain of 0.5 per cent.

Read also: NSE LIVE! Equities rally as investors scramble for oil stocks

There were 31 losers against 14 gainers on Tuesday. Forte Oil led the losers with a loss of N19.68 to close at N205.32. Total Nigeria followed with a loss of N5 to close at N170. Unilever Nigeria declined by N1.55 to close at N32.80 Zenith Bank lost 59 kobo to close at N14.44. Vitafoam Nigeria declined by 47 kobo to close at N4.43 while Tiger Branded Consumer Goods dropped by 29 kobo to N5.68 per share.

“As we noted earlier, investors swung to profit taking following impressive gains in recent sessions, however, we see significant value in a number of fundamentally sound counters and advise investors to take advantage of these stocks,” Afrinvest Securities stated.

Total turnover stood at 396.03 million shares valued at N2.66 billion in 5,513 deals. The three most active stocks were United Bank for Africa, with 65.76 million shares; Access Bank, 55.89 million shares and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, which recorded turnover of 41.93 million shares.

On the positive side, Nestle Nigeria led the gainers with a gain of N3 to close at N725. Nigerian Breweries followed with a gain of N2.02 to close at N125.02. Conoil rallied N1.99 to close at N23. Union Dicon Salt rose by 66 kobo to close at N13.86 while Flour Mills of Nigeria gathered 50 kobo to close at N23.50 per  share.

 

 

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