By Chinwendu Obienyi
It was a brutal week for equity investors trading on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) as the local bourse recorded losses in the first four trading sessions of the week, save for the last trading session when the market closed flat.
In the same vein, Nigerian stocks suffered heavy profit taking especially as Airtel Africa, BUA Cement, Dangote Sugar, Zenith Bank and Guaranty Trust (GT) Bank all declined. This resulted in the NGX All Share Index (ASI) shedding 2.93 per cent to close at 38,324.07 points while investors lost N604 billion as market capitalisation closed at N19.975 trillion from an opening value of N20.579 trillion.
Consequently, the YTD loss increased to -4.8 per cent as major counters of the market declined. The AFR-ICT and Industrial indices, was down by 5.6 and 3.3 per cent week-on-week ( w/w), the Banking and Insurance indices declined by 1.5 and 0.7 per cent w/w respectively. The Consumer goods index was flat while the Oil & Gas index gained 7.4 per cent w/w.
A total turnover of 1.048 billion shares worth N11.543 billion in 17,233 deals were traded by investors on the floor of the exchange, in contrast to a total of 840.334 million shares valued at N9.561 billion that exchanged hands last week in 13,239 deals.
The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 674.741 million shares valued at N5.589 billion traded in 9,405 deals; thus contributing 64.41 and 48.42 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
The Conglomerates Industry followed with 94.524 million shares worth N630.366 million in 828 deals, while the ICT Industry recorded a turnover of 87.137 million shares worth N630.903 million in 539 deals.
Trading in the top three equities namely Zenith Bank Plc, FBN Holdings Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 248.273 million shares worth N3.288 billion in 2,988 deals, contributing 23.70 and 28.49 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.
Commenting on the performance of the market, Cordros Capital, in their weekly assessment of the stock market, said, “This week, we believe investors will be focused on the outcome of the highly anticipated MPC meeting to gain further clarity on the movement of yields in the Fixed Income (FI) market.
Consequently, we see more of a “choppy theme” as cautious trading dominates the market. Notwithstanding, we advise investors to take positions in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings”.
For their part, Afrinvest, said, “in the coming week, we expect the bearish sentiment to continue in the absence of any positive catalyst”