Equities market bows to profit taking as investors lose N366bn WoW

Despite recording a gain on three of the week’s four trading sessions, the local stock market closed the four-day trading sessions in the red zone.

Investors took full advantage of the gains recorded over the last two weeks in booking profit on bellwether stocks to close last week with 1.3 per cent weekly depreciation in the All-share Index (ASI).

Consequently, the ASI of the Nigerian Exchange Limited settled at 38,648.91 basis points, just as the Market Capitalisation depreciated to N20.143 trillion after shedding N366 billion.

Specifically, foreign investors’ sell-offs of Airtel Africa, Okumu Oil and Stanbic IBTC drove the weekly loss as their shares depreciated by 10.0 per cent, 9.4 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively.

Consequently, the Month-to-Date (MtD) return decreased to 0.5 per cent, while the Year-to-Date (YtD) loss increased to -4.0 per cent.

On the other hand, sectoral performance was broadly positive as the Banking, Oil and Gas, Insurance, and Consumer Goods indices recorded gains by 1.1 per cent, 1.0 per cent, 0.8 per and 0.2 per cent respectively. Elsewhere, the Industrial Goods index closed flat.

During the week under review, activity levels were mixed, as trading volume declined by 9.4 per cent, while trading value rose by 8.8 per cent.

A total turnover of 981.147 million shares worth N10.384 billion in 15,001 deals were traded by investors on the floor of the Exchange last week, in contrast to a total of 1.058 billion shares valued at N12.831 billion that exchanged hands in 17,854 deals in the preceding week.

The Financial Services Industry led the activity chart with 695.803 million shares valued at N5.178 billion traded in 8,616 deals; thus contributing 70.92 per cent and 49.86 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

The Consumer Goods Industry followed with 75.879 million shares worth N1.227 billion in 2,263 deals. The third place was Conglomerates Industry, with a turnover of 67,430 million shares worth N367.306 million in 612 deals.

Trading in the top three equities namely Zenith Bank Plc, Sterling Bank Plc and Wema Bank Plc accounted for 265.649 million shares worth N2.450 billion in 2,742 deals, contributing 27.08 per cent and 23.60 per cent the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

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