Fatigue hits Nigeria’s stock market as investors lose N403bn in 6 days

By Chinwendu Obienyi

With its sixth consecutive loss last week, which resulted in N403 billion shaved off its capitalisation, the Nigerian Stock Exchange appears headed for some moment of fatigue that saw investors losing a sizeable chunk of their networth.

Investors trading on the Nigerian bourse had taken profit from highly valued stocks despite impressive performance from earnings releases.

As at Friday, the NSE All-Share Index (ASI) which tracks the general market movement of all listed equities on the NSE, depreciated by 1.74 per cent at the end of the week, closing at 38,648.48 points compared to its closing figure of 39,331.61 points penultimate trading week week.

On the other hand, the market capitalisation fell N357 billion, while year-to-date (ytd) slipped by -4.03 per cent. Further sell-offs at Monday’s session indicated the development was not any different from last week’s outting as the ASI nose-dived 0.22 per cent to close at 38,561.84 points.

In a similar vein, market capitalisation fell N46 billion to close yesterday’s transactions at N20.175 trillion. This meant that investors have so far lost N403 billion in six business days.

Speaking to Daily Sun on the development , Chief Executive Officer, Highcap Securities, David Adnori, said Nigeria’s stock market is fatigued right now due to investors focusing on yields in the fixed income market.

“The equities market has now become a buyers’ market and this presents an opportunity for investors especially bargain hunters to buy some stocks that are undervalued so that when the current situation improves, they can benefit immensely. But the real situation is down to the debt space which is doing well and so some investors are shifting there”, He said.

Similarly, analysts at Cordros Research said they expect the bears to retain dominance in the market as there are uncertainties about the direction of yields in the fixed income market still bugging investors’ minds.

At the close of business, 19 stocks depreciated in value while 17 others appreciated. Regal Insurance topped the losers’ chart with 9.09 per cent to close at 0.30 kobo per share, Livestock feeds followed with 8.50 per cent to close at N1.83, Nigerian Breweries dipped by 5.34 per cent to close at N47, Lasaco lost 4.62 per cent to close at N1.24 while Jaiz Bank shed 4.62 per cent to close at 0.62 kobo.

On the flipside, Wapic topped the gainers’ chart with 10 per cent to close at 0.55 kobo per share. NNFM was next with 9.73 per cent to close at N6.20, SMURFIT rose by 8.33 per cent to close at 0.26 kobo, NEM garnered 7.88 per cent to close at N2.19 while Berger gained 7.44 per cent to close at N6.50.