Investors maintain profit taking appetite as losses persist on Nigeria bourse
Adesola Afolabi was a businessamlive reporter and Head of Financial desk.
The bearish run on the Nigeria’s equities market continued for the fourth consecutive session on Wednesday as the benchmark index dipped, by 0.15 percent to 38,605.07 points, amidst continued profit taking.
The Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns consequently moderated to 1.31 percent and 0.95 percent respectively.
Trading activities showed the day’s top sectoral loser was the oil & gas index with a loss of 2.36 percent. This was followed by the consumer goods which depreciated by 0.25 percent and industrial goods that fell by 0.13 percent.
The losses in these indices were largely attributable to sell pressures in the shares of SEPLAT (-4.99%), NB (-1.00%), and CCNN (-3.08%) respectively.
Meanwhile, gains resurfaced in the insurance (+1.36%) and banking (+0.20%) indices, owing to interests in PRESTIGE (+10.00%) and ZENITHBANK (+1.96%) stocks, respectively.
Market breadth turned positive, with 23 gainers and 20 losers, led by PRESTIGE (+10.00%) and SEPLAT (-4.99%) shares. Total volume and value of trades declined by 31.42% and 37.42% to 267.76 million units, and NGN3.83 billion respectively, traded in 4,786 deals.
“Gains are however expected to resurface in the equities market, in the near term,” says analysts at cordros capital