By Chinwendu Obienyi
Despite profit-taking activities dominating market performance, investors trading on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) exchanged 1.511 billion shares worth N13.547 billion in 20,074 deals.
This was in contrast to a total of 705.636 million shares valued at N12.850 billion that exchanged hands in 22,124 deals in the previous week. The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 680.202 million shares valued at N4.672 billion traded in 9,230 deals; thus contributing 45.02 per cent and 34.48 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Services Industry followed with 499.178 million shares worth N3.407 billion in 866 deals while the ICT Industry recorded a turnover of 113.804 million shares worth N2.246 billion in 2,083 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Capital Hotel Plc, FBN Holdings Plc and Jaiz Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 763.836 million shares worth N5.130 billion in 1,025 deals, contributing 50.55 per cent and 37.87 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
However, the NGX All Share Index (ASI) dipped by 2.09 per cent week-on-week (w/w) to close the trading week at 49,664.07 points as the market recorded four losses out of five trading consecutive sessions. This was even as market capitalization fell by N571 billion from an opening market figure of N27.358 trillion to close at N26.787 trillion.
Notably, selloffs of MTNN (-6.9 per cent), BUA Cement (-10.0 per cent), Dangote Cement (-2.3 per cent) and Stanbic (-9.7 per cent) stocks led to the weekly loss. Consequently, the Month-to-Date (MTD) loss increased to -1.4 per cent, while the Year-to-Date (YTD) gain moderated to +16.3 per cent
Reacting to the performance of the market, analysts at Cordros Research said investors will focus on the outcome of the bond auction scheduled to hold today to gain further clarity on the movement of yields in the fixed income market.
“As a result, we envisage cautious buying actions from dividend-yield-seeking investors amid intermittent profit-taking activities. Notwithstanding, we reiterate the need for positioning in only fundamentally sound stocks as the unimpressive macro environment remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings”, they said.