NSE: market operators attribute recent lull to sell pressure

Some capital market operators on Monday attributed the recent lull in the nation’s bourse to profit-taking by investors. They said that the “sell pressure” had outweighed demand for equities in the capital market. Malam Garba Kurfi, the Managing Director of APT Securities and Funds Ltd., said that the downward trend of the transactions was as a result of profit-taking by investors. Kurfi said that the surfeit would likely continue this week in view of the preparations for Christmas and end of year festivities.

Alhaji Rasheed Yussuf, the Managing Director of Trust Yield Securities Ltd., attributed the lull in the market to the delay in the resolution of stockbrokers’ forbearance package. According to Yussuf, the stockbrokers’ debts of N300 billion should be addressed for brokers to be active again. Mr Emma Ndu, another stockbroker, called on the Federal Government to hasten its privatisation exercise to deepen market. Ndu said that the government should ensure the listing of all its privatised agencies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Meanwhile, the NSE All-Share Index dropped by 317.36 points or 1.19 per cent last week to close at 26,400.94 against 26,718.30 due to price losses. Also, the market capitalisation, which opened at N8.51 trillion, lost N103.13 billion to close at N8.41 trillion. Nestle led the losers chart, dropping N31.83 to close at N600.50, while Guinness trailed with N13.15 to close at N251.85 per share. On the other hand, Cadbury topped the gainers’ chart with N1.39 to close at N25.89, while NCR followed with a gain of N1.31 to close at N14.40 per share.

NAN reports that a turnover of 1.29 billion shares worth N9.41 billion were traded in 19,825 deals during the week.
This was against the 1.89 billion shares valued at N11.49 billion exchanged in 22,277 deals in the preceding week.
The financial services sector was the most active with 876.9 shares worth N5.33 billion traded in 11,454 deals.
During the week under review, the NSE added Dangote Flour Mills, Prestige Assurance and Unity Bank to the list of market making stocks to bring the number to number of stocks to 33.