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By Chinwendu Obienyi
There appears to be no respite for Nigerian equities as further losses plunged the market in the negative territory at the close of transactions on Monday.
Negative sentiments had as at last week pervaded the stock market with the All Share Index (ASI) down by 0.6 per cent due to sell-offs in high capitalised stocks.
Reacting to last week’s performance, market operators said they expected market performance to remain mixed on resumption of trading.
Specifically, the ASI closed 0.05 per cent weaker to settle at 49,346.40 points, the lowest point since 28 April 2022 as sell-offs in banking stocks ensued.
Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 15.52 per cent, with market capitalisation down N13.06 billion to close at N26.62 trillion.
Analysing by sectors, the Banking (-0.7 per cent), Insurance (-0.1 per cent), and Oil & Gas (-0.1 per cent) indices declined, while the Consumer Goods (+0.1 per cent) index was the sole gainer of the day. The Industrial Goods index was flat.
Analysis of yesterday’s market activities showed that trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 19.97 per cent.
A total of 122.74 million shares valued at N1.30 billion were exchanged in 3,915 deals. Mutual Benefit was the most active stock, trading over 18.4 million shares worth N47.9 million, Transcorp was next, selling 9.23 million shares worth N97.2 million while GTCO transacted 8.57 million shares valued at N17.37 million.
Analysts at Cordros Research said, “this week’s sessions, we might see attractive dividend yields, which could be matched by intermittent profit-taking activities.
Notwithstanding, we advise investors to take positions in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings”.
Meanwhile, investors sentiment towards stocks remained negative as 19 stocks depreciated in value while 9 others appreciated.
FTN Cocoa led the laggards with 9.09 per cent to close at 0.30 kobo per share.
Lasaco followed with 8.35 per cent to close at 0.95 kobo, Wapic fell by 7.32 per cent to close at 0.38 kobo, ETI declined by 5.66 per cent to close at N10 while NGX Group dropped 4.62 per cent to close at N19.60.
