At the end of trade today, the equities market recorded a moderate loss of 1bp to close at 24,276.56 due to sell-offs in INTBREW (-8.9 per cent), FBNH (-0.9 per cent) and ACCESS (-0.8 per cent).
This resulted in a total loss of ₦786.7m for investors as market capitalisation settled lower at N12.7 trillion with year to date loss closed at -9.6 per cent.
Activity level weakened as volume and value traded dived 17.4% and 47.4% to 192.1m units and ₦2.5bn respectively. FIDELITY (38.1m units), GUARANTY (23.6m units) and ZENITH (23.1m units) were the top traded by volume while GUARANTY (₦534.5m), ZENITH (₦384.5m) and MTNN (₦374.5m) led by value.
Across the six indices that we track, three advanced, two lost while the AFR-ICT remained unchanged.
The Insurance and Banking indices were the best performers as both gained 0.6 per cent each following price appreciation in AIICO (+3.3 per cent), GUARANTY (+1.1 per cent) and ZENITH (+0.6 per cent). Meanwhile, gain in BUACEMENT (+0.1 per cent) pushed the Industrial Goods index higher by 0.2%. Conversely, the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices lost 0.6 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively due to sell-pressures in INTBREW (-8.9 per cent), DANGSUGAR (-0.9 per cent) and CONOIL (-10.0 per cent).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.7x from the 3.1x recorded in the previous session as 10 stocks advanced against the 15 decliners. The top gainers were LAWUNION (+7.0%), HONYFLOUR (+6.6%) and STERLNBA (+5.8%) while CONOIL (-10.0%), ARBICO (-9.5%) and VITAFOAM (-9.3%) were the top decliners. We expect the week to close bearish on the back profit taking in the next trading session.
