Investors lost N17.2 bn as sell-offs drag NSE ASI down 12bps

The trading at the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange closed in the red as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 12bps to close at 40,755.73 points while YTD return moderated to 6.6 per cent. Consequently, investors lost N17.2 billion in value as market capitalisation worsened to N14.7 trillion. Today’s bearish performance was attributable to sell offs in DANGCEM (-1.2%), FBNH (-9.0%) and ZENITH (-1.4%). However, ex-DANGCEM the market would have closed positive (+32bps). Despite the negative performance, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded rose 42.1 per cent and 43.0 per cent to 350.4 million units and N4.6 billion respectively. FBNH (80.1m), UBA (60.0m) and FIDELITY (40.6m) were the most traded stocks by volume while FBNH (N1.0bn), UBA (N684.5m) and FLOURMILL (N538.2m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Afrinvest in a note to investors said “performance across sectors was largely bullish as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage trended upwards. The Oil & Gas index appreciated the most, up 2.3% as a result of buying interest in SEPLAT (+3.8%) and FORTE (+10.2%). The Consumer Goods index trailed, closing 1.7% higher, due to bargain hunting in NESTLE (+5.0%) while gains in GUARANTY (+0.6%) and UBA (+1.8%) pushed the Banking index up 0.2%. On the flip side, the Industrial Goods and Insurances indices lost 1.4% and 0.8% respectively following price depreciation in DANGCEM (-1.2%), WAPCO (-2.0%) and CONTINSURE (-4.4%).

“Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved to 1.1x from 1.0x recorded in the preceding session as 24 stocks advanced against 22 decliners. Today’s top performers were FORTE (+10.2%), PRESCO (+5.0%) and NESTLE (+5.0%) while FBNH (-9.0%), SKYE (-5.7%) and OANDO (-4.9%) were the worst performing stocks. Despite the negative market performance, investor sentiment slightly increased. Hence, in the near term, we expect bargain hunting as well as investors’ reaction to the Q1:2018 results to buoy performance”.