Yesterday, sell-offs in Banking stocks – ZENITH (-1.6%), GUARANTY (-0.9%),ACCESS (-3.4%) and UBA (-2.0%) – extended the bearish performance in the market to the third consecutive trading session as the All Share Index (ASI) fell 7bps to 37,226.44 points while YTD loss worsened to 2.7%. Consequently, investors lost N9.7bn as market capitalisation remained at N13.5tn. However, activity level was mixed as volume traded decreased by 7.8% to 263.0m units while value traded increased by 10.0% to N4.1bn.ACCESS (42.9m), ZENITH (40.8m) and SOVERNINS (33.8m) were the most traded stocks by volume while ZENITH (N1.0bn), INTBREW (N0.8bn) and UNILEVER (N0.7bn) were the most traded stocks by value.
Mixed Sector Performance
The performance across sectors under our watch remained mixed as 2 of 5 indices closed higher. The Industrial Goods index rose 0.5% due to bargain hunting in DANGCEM (+0.9%) and WAPCO (+1.8%) while the Consumer Goods index gained 0.1% following buy interest in INTBREW (+5.6%) and UNILEVER (+0.3%).
On the other hand, the Banking index led losers, shedding 1.4% on the back of sell-offs in ZENITH (-1.6%), GUARANTY (-0.9%), ACCESS (-3.4%) and UBA (-2.0%). Similarly, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices declined 1.1% and 0.6% respectively due to continued profit taking in CUSTODIAN (-3.8%) and FORTE (-7.4%).
Investor Sentiment Weakens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.5x from 0.7x recorded yesterday as 15 stocks advanced against 30 stocks that declined. Yesterday’s best performing stocks were CUSTODIAN (+8.5%), INTBREW (+5.6%) and MULTIVERSE (+5.0%) while the worst performing stocks were BETAGLAS (-10.0%),TANTALIZER (-9.1%) and MCNICHOLS (-9.0%).
As highlighted yesterday, we continue to see some late bargain hunting in the market, albeit, insufficient to upturn market performance. Hence, we expect to see a similar trend in tomorrows’ trading activity.
