Stock market remains depressed despite affirmation of economic recovery

The first trading day in the month of September kicked- off on a negative note as investors barely reacted to the news of Nigeria’s exit from recession, announced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

Stock market performance for the month of August had closed negative with a Month-to-Date return of -0.95 per cent, while Year-to-Date return had moderated to 32.11per cent.

However, with the announcement of 0.55 percent improvement in Nigeria’s real GDP for Q2-2017, which indicates a rebounded economy from 5-straight quarters of contraction, investors’ appetite worsened as apathy for oil and gas stocks combined with profit taking in industrial stocks persisted.

The day consequently ended with a decline of 0.28 per cent, as the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index depreciated to 35,403.92 points, while the Market Capitalisation commenced the month of September with a loss of N34.7bn to settle at N12.202trillion.

Price movement chart showed 21 gainers were paired against 24 losers.

CI leasing and NEM Insurance Plc led the gainers with an appreciation of 5 per cent each to close at N1.05 respectively. They were trailed by Guinness Nigeria who announced a return to profit in its full year results ended June 30, 2017.

The stock grew by 4.99 per cent to close at N79.27, Skyebank added 4.92 per cent to close at 64 kobo per share while FBN Holdings advanced by 4.91 per cent to close the day at N5.98 per share.
On the flip side, Seplat led the day’s losers with a depreciation of 5 per cent to close at N465.98 per share, Julius Berger dropped 4.99 per cent to close at N30.87 per share and Wapco declined 4.98 per cent to close at N54.14. Cadbury fell 4.97 percent to close at N10.90 and Total depreciated 4.90 per cent to close at N233 per share.

At the end of the day’s transactions, investors in 4,188 deals traded a total of 230.0million shares valued at N4.775 million. This was in contrast to a total of 266.5 million shares valued at N4.04 billion traded in 2,263 deals last Thursday.

Access bank emerged the most traded stock on Tuesday with 63.3 million units sold at N606.9 million, UBA was next with the sale of 27.6 million units of shares valued at N246.9 million.

Zenith Bank was third with the sale of 17.8 million shares worth N413.6 million, FBN Holdings sold 14.8 million shares at N85.4 million while Stanbic sold 13 million shares worth N498.6 million