Nigerian stocks open week bearish as benchmark index dips 0.4%

The Nigerian equities market opened the week and the month of October bearish Tuesday as all-share index shed 0.4 percent to close at 35,306.1 points, while market year-to-date gain settled at 31.4 percent.

To this end, market capitalization decreased by N45.7 billion to N12.2 trillion.

Tuesday’s performance was pulled by price depreciation in DANGCEM (-1.4%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.8%) and PZ (-6.8%). Ex-DANGCEM, market would have gone up six basis points (bps.)

On the other hand, activity level improved as volume and value traded surged 169.0 percent and 51.1 percent to 634.3 million units and N5.8 trillion respectively.

Three out of five sector indices closed positive reflecting a mixed performance across sectors. The banking index led gainers, up 0.6 percent due to gains in ZENITH (+2.6%) UNION (+3.9%) and UBA (+1.7%).

In the same vein, buy interest in WAPCO (+2.6%) pushed the industrial goods index up by 0.3 percent despite losses in DANGCEM. Similarly, the insurance index closed 0.1 percent higher owing to price appreciation in NEM (+4.3%).

On the flip side, the consumer goods index fell 0.9 percent as NIGERIAN BREWERIES and PZ declined 1.8 percent and 6.8 percent respectively, while losses in FORTE OIL (-3.6%) and OANDO (-0.5%) dragged the oil & gas index 0.3 percent.

Market sentiment as measured by market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio) softened to 0.9x (from 1.0x recorded last Friday) after 18 stocks advanced against 21 decliners.

Best performing stocks were CILEASING (+9.8%), LEARNAFRICA (+6.8%) and CAVERTON (+4.8), while the worst performers were UNITYBANK (-5.0%), PZ (-5.0%) and UCAP (-5.0%).

Despite the negative performance and the absence of market drivers, analysts expect market sentiment to improve as the earnings season begins this week.

In the NASD OTC exchange, total volume and value traded stood at 11,648 units and N1.3 million respectively. AFRILAND, CAPDBETO and WAMCO traded in the session.