Domestic Equities Index Moderates by 0.69% amid Sustained Bearish Activity

In the just concluded week, the All-Share Index fell by 0.69% w-o-w to 38,382.39 points, while the year-to-date loss worsened to -4.69%. As at Thursday, the w-o-w change stood at +0.69%; however, selling pressure on bellwether stocks such as MTNN, BUACEMENT and DANGCEM today pushed the index into the negative territory.

The general negative sentiment was in spite of positive corporate actions of GUARANTY and UBN – they declared higher cash dividends of N2.70 and N0.25 respectively.

Performance across sub-sector indices tracked was weak as three out of the five indices tracked closed in the red zone; the NSE Insurance, NSE Consumer Goods and NSE Industrial indices dwindled by 0.01%, 1.46% and 2.62% to 197.45 points, 531.97 points and 1,873.17 points respectively. However, the NSE Banking and NSE Oil/Gas indices rose by 2.09% and 1.59% to 361.13 points and 1,873.17 points respectively.

Meanwhile, trading activity was mixed as total deals and value of stocks traded fell by 4.10% and 6.47% to 20,173 deals and N19.27 billion respectively. However, the total volume of goods traded rose by 44.66% to 2.34 billion units.

In the new week, we expect the domestic equities market to remain weak as yields in the fixed income market trend upward, especially for the 364-day bill which rose to 7%. Hence, we expect investors to use the opportunity to hunt for bargains given the lower re-entry prices.