The Nigerian equities market closed the week negative on Friday. The first weekly decline after eight weeks of consecutive gains as investors book on profits on the local bourse.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) shed 2.6 per cent having settled below the 35,000 marks recorded in the prior week, to close at 34,136.82 basis points, just as investors lost N470.61 billion as the market capitalisation settled at N17.84 trillion.
Profit-taking held sway on the capital market, most particularly amongst banking stocks as investors took positions in the market to sell-off their stocks while depressed yields in the fixed income market still loom.
Notably, over the five-day trading session, investors’ sell down shares of United Bank of Nigeria, thus it declined by ten per cent. Dangote Sugar shed 7.7 per cent, Flour Mills of Nigeria declined by 7.4 per cent, while Stanbic IBTC lost 6.5 per cent. Also, Zenith Bank declined by 5.7 per cent while Dangote Cement depreciated by 3.4 per cent.
Thus the Month-to-Date (MtD) return moderated to 27.2 per cent while the Year-to-Date (MtD) return for index declined to 27.2 per cent.
Performance across sectors was all broadly negative, save for the Insurance index that closed marginally positive by 0.5 per cent. The Banking, Oil and Gas, Consumer Goods, and Industrial indices closed in the red after it recorded a weekly decline of six per cent, 4.4 per cent, 4.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively.
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Activity level was however mixed, as volume grew strongly by 153.8 per cent Week on Week (WoW) while value declined 38.7 per cent w/w.
Basically, a total turnover of 11.4 billion shares worth N35.89 billion in 39,265 deals was traded last week by investors on the floor of the Exchange.
The most traded stocks by volume for the week under review were UAC-Properties, Transnational Corporation, and Jaiz Bank, accounting for 9.26 billion shares worth N6.64 billion in 1,958 deals, contributing 81.22 per cent respectively.
Equities market breadth closed negative for the week with 21 gainers led by BOC Gas and Tripple-G as against 55 losers led by Wapic Insurance and Oando.
In the week ahead, analysts expect a mixed market performance due to continued profit-taking activities and positioning by early birds in dividend-paying stocks ahead of Full Year 2020 dividend declarations, therefore reiterating the need for positioning in only fundamentally sound stocks as the weak macro environment remained a significant headwind for corporate earnings.
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