The bearish sentiment persisted in the local bourse yesterday as declines in market bellwethers – DANGCEM (-2.2%) and GUARANTY (-1.6%) – pulled the All NSE All Share Index (ASI) 0.6% lower to 37,733.44 points while YTD loss deteriorated to 1.3%. Hence, investors lost N88.5bn as market capitalization fell to N13.7tn.
However, activity level improved as volume and value traded rose 11.5% and 40.0% to 414.9m units and N4.5bn respectively. Top traded stocks by volume was CHAMPION (140.4m), STERLING (47.8m) and ZENITH (26.2m) while GUARANTY (N921.6m), ZENITH (N651.8m) and DANGCEM (N599.5m) were the most traded stocks by value.
Largely Bullish Sector Performance
The performance across sectors was largely bullish as 3 of 5 indices trended northwards.
The Industrial Goods, Consumer Goods and Insurance indices were yesterday’s gainers, up 1.4%, 0.5% and 0.2% respectively, buoyed by bargain hunting in INTBREW (+3.3%),WAPCO (+5.0%), UNILEVER (+2.5%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.5%). On the flipside, the Banking index was the sole loser, shedding 0.7% on the back of sell-offs in GUARANTY (-1.6%), ZENITH (-0.4%) and DIAMOND (-3.5%).
The Oil & Gas index closed flat, halting its six days of consecutive losses.
Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment as shown by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 0.8x from 0.3x recorded yesterday as 16 stocks advanced against 20 decliners.
Yesterday’s top advancers were HONYFLOUR (+9.5%), LAWUNION (+9.3%) and AIICO (+5.0%) while EQUITYASSURE (-4.5%), WEMA (-4.1%) and DIAMOND (-3.5%) were the worst performers.
Given the largely bullish sector performance and improved investor sentiment, we see an opportunity for a market rebound in the last trading day of the week.
