NSE: Equities market sheds N548bn in 1 week

Temitope Adebayo

Equities market of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued its bearish trend as sustained sell-offs on market bellwethers weighed on overall performance with investors losing N548 billion last week.

Similarly, the stock market benchmark index, NSE All Share Index (ASI) dropped by 1425.04 basis points or five per cent close the week at 29,616.38 basis points from 31,041.42 basis points it opened for trading the prior week.

Market statistics obtained by The Daily Times showed that the market capitalisation, which opened trading at N11.672 trillion, lost N548 billion or five per cent to close trading at N11.124 trillion.

The ASI Year-To-Date (YTD) index worsened as it declined from -1.24 per cent to -5.8 per cent.

In the week under review, all other indices finished lower. The Consumer Goods index declined the most (-7.7 per cent), following sustained sell-offs on Beta Glass Plc (-18.9 per cent), Dangote Flour (-16.2 per cent) and Unilever (-10.3 per cent) trailed by the Industrial index followed suit, declining by (-6.5 per cent) on the backdrop of losses in Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc (-14.6 per cent), Wapco (-5.3 per cent) and Cutix Plc (-2.7 per cent).

The banking index (-6.1 per cent), due to significant price depreciation in United Bank for Africa (-19.5 per cent), Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (-12.1 per cent) and Access Bank (-11.6 per cent) while sell pressures in AIICO Insurance (-9.9 per cent), Linkage Assurance (-9.1 per cent) and AXA Mansard Insurance (-9.1 per cent) dragged the insurance index lower by 3.9 per cent.

Also, the Oil & Gas index (-2.4 per cent) closed in the red as losses in Eterna Plc (-24.5 per cent), Oando Plc (-12.4 per cent) and Mobil Oil Nigeria weighed on the index.

Analysts at GTI Securities Limited stated, “Though we maintain a cautious outlook in the near term, we expect bargain hunting of fundamentally sound stock to shape the overall market direction next week.”

Overall, a turnover of 3.544 billion shares worth N20.264 billion in 19,130 deals was traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange in contrast to a total of 2.629 billion shares valued at N12.794 billion that exchanged hands last week in 15,558 deals.

A further breakdown of the trading showed that “The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 3.060 billion shares valued at N14.469 billion traded in 11,738 deals; thus contributing 86.35 per cent and 71.40 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

The ICT Industry followed with 253.633 million shares worth N53.707 million in 277 deals. The third place was the Consumer Goods Industry with a turnover of 65.499 million shares worth N4.356 billion in 2,732 deals.