LAGOS FEBRUARY 7, 2017 – Nigerian equities opened on Monday to a surge in sell orders, worsening the market situation that had seen quoted equities losing N167 billion last week.
At the end of the five-hour trading session at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), investors suffered net capital loss of N74 billion, representing average day-on-day decline of 0.83 per cent.
With 25 losers to eight gainers, the market situation showed widespread selling sentiments, a situation that led to most transactions closing lower on Monday. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities on the NSE dropped from its opening value of N8.892 trillion to close at N8.818 trillion, representing a loss of N74 billion.
The All Share Index (ASI), the value-based common index that tracks prices at the Exchange, declined from 25,802.54 points to close at 25,587.09 points.
The negative average year-to-date return at the stock market worsened to -4.79 per cent, already marking out the first quarter as a tough period for investors.
Most sectoral and group indices at the Exchange closed in the negative, underlining the wide spread of the selloffs. The NSE Banking Index and the NSE Insurance Index declined by 1.0 per cent each. The NSE Industrial Goods Index fell by 0.9 per cent while the NSE Oil and Gas Index slipped by 0.5 per cent. However, the NSE Consumer Goods Index recorded marginal gain of 0.02 per cent.
Total Nigeria led the losers with a loss of N6 to close at N262. Dangote Cement, Nigeria’s most capitalised stock, followed with a loss of N2.99 to close at N165.01. GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria declined by 75 kobo to N14.25. PZ Cussons Nigeria lost 67 kobo to close at N12.87. Guinness Nigeria dropped by 28 kobo to close at N66.22 while Forte Oil lost 25 kobo to close at N60.75.
On the positive side, Nigerian Breweries led the gainers with a gain of 39 kobo to close at N133.50. United Capital followed with a gain of 17 kobo to close at N3.72. Guaranty Trust Bank rose by 6.0 kobo to close at N23.08. Dangote Sugar Refinery added 4.0 kobo to close at N6.05.
Livestock Feeds rose by 3.0 kobo to 78 kobo while AIICO Insurance, NEM Insurance and Stanbic IBTC Holdings inched up by a kobo each to close at 59 kobo, 81 kobo and N17.81 respectively.
Also, total turnover dropped below recent average with the exchange of 144.1 million shares valued at N863.1 million in 2,597 deals. Low-priced stocks dominated the activities chart. FBN Holdings was the most active stock with a turnover of 25.25 million shares worth N88.24 million. Staco Insurance followed with 20 million shares valued at N10 million while Fidelity Bank recorded a turnover of 13.55 million shares worth N12.1 million.
“The bearish market performance remains driven by expectations of uninspiring corporate earnings releases, and we expect market to trade sideways in subsequent sessions. However, we do not rule out the possibility of bargain hunting considering the benchmark index has recorded losses on four of the last five trading sessions,” Afrinvest Securities, a Lagos-based dealer on the Exchange, stated.
