Stock market opens 2018 second half in red amid selloffs in Dangote Cement, GTBank

Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday recorded bearish performance amid renewed profit taking activity in market bellwethers, dragging the market indicators into the negative region to kick start the second half of 2018.

Specifically, selloffs in Dangote Cement (-2.1%), Guaranty Trust Bank (- 1.2%) and Zenith Bank (-1.6%) pulled the All Share Index (ASI), key performance index of the NSE, by 87 basis points to close at 37,946.92 points.

The bearish performance in highly capitalized stocks such as Dangote Cement, Guaranty Trust Bank and Nigerian Breweries caused the NSE Industrial, NSE Banking and NSE Consumer Good Indexes to shed 1.04 percent, 1.02 percent and 0.11 percent respectively.

Investors lost N120 billion as market capitalisation of traded equities, which opened at N13.87 trillion, closed at N13.75 trillion, while year to date loss of the ASI stood at 0.78 percent.

At the close of business, investors’ sentiment at the local burse as indicated by market breadth weakened as 21 losers emerged as against 16 gainers.

Dangote Cement led the losers’ chart by shedding N4.90 to close at N224.10 per share. Forte Oil trailed by dropping N3.20 to close at N29.65 per share, while Nigerian Breweries went down by N1.10 to close at N113.10 per share.
Guaranty Trust Bank lost 50k to close at N40 per share, while Zenith Bank was down by 40k to close at N24.60 per share.

Conversely, Mobil Oil led the gainers’ chart by adding N16.90 to close at N199.90 per share. Guiness followed with a gain of N1.30 to close at N99.05 per share, while Flour Mills garnered 80k to close at N32.80 per share.

Julius Berger went up by 55k to close at N28.05 per share, while C & I Leasing recorded 20k gain to close at N2.27 per share.

Read Also: 18m Nigerians to become jobless by 2022 – FSDH

A breakdown of the activities chart indicates that Sterling Bank was the most active stock, trading 100.36 million shares valued at N138.5 million.

FBN Holdings exchanged 23.7 million shares worth N251.11 million, while Wema Bank transacted 16.7 million shares valued at N12.37 million

United Bank for Africa sold 12.57 million shares worth N131.79 million, while Mcnichoks recorded a turnover of 11.76 million shares valued at N10.59 million.

In all, investors bought and sold 256.23 million shares valued at N1.86 billion achieved in 3,308 deals.

This was in contrast with a turnover of 469.34 million shares worth N5.82 billion traded in 3,355 deals recorded on last Friday.

Analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited expect bearish performance on subsequent trading sessions.

“While small to mid cap stocks have enjoyed bargain hunting from short-term investors, we continue to observe bearish sentiments on bellwethers.

“Hence, we expect overall market performance to be bearish in subsequent sessions while emphasizing that valuations remain attractive for entry by long-term investors,” they said.

 

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