Bears seen unwilling to relinquish position on Nigerian Bourse

A negative close on Wednesday affirms earlier belief that investors’ sentiment on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is still weak.

With the disappointing reports on rising inflation and unemployment rates, many analysts expect Nigeria’s equities market to remain weak in the short term as more investors adopt a cautious trading strategy.

“Our view is that overall investor sentiment continues to be weak amid the improvements in bond yields”, according to analysts at Coronation research. The analysts noted that in the meantime they intend to further their sales of bank and industrial stocks to take the notional cash position from 25percent to close to 30percent of the portfolio.

The stock market of Africa’s largest economy has successfully erased earlier gains in the face of increasing economic uncertainties. Recall that the market closed bearish last week with some sell-off. Year-to-date (Ytd) return is in negative of 3.89percent, while only this month it has recorded negative return of 2.75percent.

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NCR Plc led the laggards as investors reduced their positions in stock, leading to a decline by 30kobo or 9.71percent, from N3.09 to N2.79. Neimeth share price also dropped, from N2.09 to N1.9, shedding 19kobo or 9.09percent.

Vitafoam decreased from N7.75 to N7.35, losing 40kobo or 5.16percent. AXA Mansard moved down from 99kobo to 94kobo, shedding 5kobo or 5.05percent, while NEM Insurance decreased from N2.19 to N2.09, losing 10kobo or 4.57percent.

At the close of trading session on Wednesday, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 0.04percent, from 38,720.81 points to 38,706.13 points; while the value of listed stocks on the Bourse decreased by N7billion, from preceding day high of N20.258trillion to N20.251trillion.

In 4,103 deals, investors exchanged 177,396,341 units valued at N2.676billion. GTBank, Zenith, UBA, Transcorp and Access Bank were most traded stocks.