As anticipated, profit-taking by investors at the Nigerian equities sector halted six days of bullish run to commence trading on a downturn yesterday, causing market capitalisation to depreciate by N27 billion.
Yesterday, the All-Share Index (ASI) fell by 51.30 absolute points or 0.17 per cent to close at 30,479.39 points. Similarly, the overall market capitalisation lost N27 billion to close at N15.931 trillion.
The downtrend was impacted by losses recorded in large and medium value stocks, including Mobil Nigeria, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), Julius Berger, C&I Leasing, and International Breweries.
Analysts at United Capital Plc, said: “We expect the earnings to continue to sway the direction of the market coupled with the low yield environment as we await the Tier one Banks results.”
Afrinvest Limited also said: “This week, we expect to see slight profit-taking at the start of the week.”
Vetiva Capital said: “The domestic bourse kick-started the new week on a quiet tone amidst profit taking action and reduced turnover. Taking a cue from the negative sectoral performances, negative market breadth, declining prices of crude oil, coupled with the rising cases of the Coronavirus pandemic across major economies, we expect the market to remain soft in the next few sessions.
“However given where yields are in the FI market, we expect funds to continue to be channelled to some attractive counters in the equities market, thus reducing the impact of the general weak sentiment.”
Trading sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was negative, as 26 stocks declined relative to 22 gainers. Livestock Feeds recorded the highest price gain of 9.88 per cent to close at 89 kobo per share.
Dangote Sugar Refinery followed with 9.78 per cent to close at N15.15, and NPF Microfinance Bank rose by 9.68 per cent to close at N1.70, per share.
Regency Alliance Insurance rose 9.09 per cent to close at 24 kobo, while Royal Exchange appreciated by 8.70 per cent to close at 25 kobo, per share.
On the other hand, C&I Leasing led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent to close at N3.96, per share. FCMB Group followed with 9.90 per cent to close at N2.82, while ETI shed 8.85 per cent to close at N5.15, per share.
Oando lost 6.55 per cent to close at N2.57, and International Breweries slipped 5.02 per cent to close at N7.00, per share.
Also, the total volume traded decreased by 53.41 per cent to 376.653 million shares worth N3.802 billion, traded in 6,050 deals.
Transactions in the shares of Fidelity Bank topped the activity chart with 49.897 million shares valued at N122.163 million. Zenith Bank followed with 47.035 million shares worth N1.033 billion.
