Why stock market defied uptrend predictions relapses by 0.12%

As analyst revise their outlook on the Nigerian equities to “cautious trading”, investors demonstrated a slight aversion to certain blue chips on Wednesday, driving the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index (ASI) 0.12 percent lower to settle at 40,772.26 points.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date return moderated to -1.80 percent and 6.57 percent respectively.

The Industrial Goods index recorded the largest loss of (-1.42 percent) as Dangote Cement recorded a 1.21 percent decline in its share price to close at N245 per share.

Although Dangote Cement released an impressive Q1 result on Tuesday, stock market analysts are of the view that the proposed N300bn corporate bonds fundraising could be more attractive to investors.

The loss recorded by the industrial index was however followed by the Insurance index that dropped 0.76 per cent owing to selloffs of WAPCO (-1.97 per cent) and CONTINSURE (-4.43 per cent) shares respectively. On the flip side, the Oil & Gas (+2.33%), Consumer Goods (+1.74%), and Banking (+0.16%) indices closed in the green, following gains in the shares of FO (+10.16%), NESTLE (+4.99%), and GUARANTY (+0.58%), respectively.

Market breadth turned positive, with 23 gainers and 22 losers, led by Forte Oil that gained 10.16 per cent and FBN Holdings that fell 8.96 per cent respectively.

Meanwhile, volume and value of trades grew by 42.34per cent and 42.93 per cent to 350.98 million units and NGN4.60 billion respectively, exchanged in 5,020 deals.