Equities market – New week, same sentiment

The first ‘business day’ of the week and the first Monday of the month. Still stuck in the red zone, the equities market continues to be weighed down by poor scorecards as forecasted by analysts.  The All-Share-Index (ASI) at the close of business on Monday slid 0.35% to close at  26,887.54 down from 26,981.60 on Friday the previous week. Market breadth further reflected prevailing conditions with 18 (eighteen  losers) against 10 (ten) gainers while 56 remained unchanged.

Leaning hardest on the ASI was CCN which declined 5.54% to close at N4.94. STERLNBANK (-4.82%) followed and was trailed by AIICO (–4.76%), CONTINSURE (-4.67%) and MANSARD (-4.55%).

ETERNA on the other hand strove in futility to place the benchmark index in the green, it led the gainers’ table with a 9.90% gain and closing price of N 3.22. Trailing after were  LIVESTOCK (+8.22%), NPFMCRFBK (+4.81%), AIRSERVICE (+4.72%) and IKEJAHOTEL (+4.71%).

As for deals consummated, the total number increased from 2,903 last Friday to 2,963thus placing market capitalization at 9.255 trillion down from 9.288 trillion (last Friday). Investors today staked N1.157 billion (N1.213 billion Friday) on 115.044 million units (151.9 million Friday) of shares translating to mixed trading/activity levels – volume traded dipped while value traded increased.

At the close of business, results showed UBA to be the investor’s’ favorite with 21.5 million units of its shares traded, rivaled by GUARANTY (17.8 million units). All top positions were occupied by banking sector players, particularly Tier -1 banks.  GUARANTY was trailed by ZENITHBANK (11.7 million), FBNH (10.5 million) and FCMB (9.7 million).

Recap of the previous week

The equities market closed the previous week in the red on account of weak investor sentiments primarily hinged on unimpressive Q3 results.  It closed negative on four out of the five trading day. Investors ‘ efforts at bargain hunting lifted the index only temporarily as the rest of the week was characterized by a constant decline.  It is pertinent to note that the All-Share-Index (ASI) hit a five month low last week. Accordingly, speculators ahead of  the possible December rally are bargain hunting.

Across sectors,  performance was mixed with two sectors closing in the red while three advanced. As for the gainers, Industrial goods and Insurance gained 3.0% and 1.3% W-o-W respectively. Conversely, the oil and gas index posted the greatest decline sliding 4.0% followed by Banking (-3.2%) and Consumer goods (-0.3%). Analysts project  the negative sentiment to persist, investors have therefore been advised to trade with caution.