Nigerian Equity Market Started The Week On A Negative Note, Sheds 0.40%

The Nigerian equity market started the week on a negative note as it dipped by -0.40% to 38,712.55 points. Thus, year-to-date return and market capitalization moderated to -3.87% and N20.25 trillion respectively. Investor sentiment as measured by the market breadth closed negative at 0.72x on 18 advancers and 25 decliners.

The index was impacted by profit-taking on brewer and banking tickers GUINNESS (9.93%) and STANBIC (9.94%), respectively. DANGSUGAR also declined by 2.06%.  ZENITH (0.23%), FBNH (0.69%) and ACCESS (0.62%) embraced marginal gains while GUARANTY closed flat. UBA declined by -0.71%.

Volume traded grew by 20.89% to 194.42 million units while value traded declined by 6.04% to N2.78 billion. The most traded stocks by volume were FIDELITY (30.87 million units), CHAMS (29.53 million units) and ACCESS (23.37 million units), while NEWGOLD (N1.41 billion), ACCESS (N188.98 million) and GUARANTY (N120.54 million) topped the value chart.

Across coverage sectors, performance was broadly bearish. The NSE banking sector gained 16bps while the NSE consumer goods, oil & gas and insurance sectors lost 103bps, 12bps and 85bps, respectively. The NSE industrial sector closed flat.

The market is likely to remain range-bound in the near or medium-term in the absence of triggers that would create sustained investor interest.