Nigeria’s equities market starts new week on negative note

The stock market of Africa’s largest economy started this new week on a negative note as investors, still in their bearish mood, moved further to take profit on some stocks.

Topmost on the list of counters mostly offered for sale are Africa Prudential (-9.59percent), Lasaco Assurance (-9.52percent), Niger Insurance (-8.70percent), Lafarge Africa (-8percent) and RedStar (-7.42percent).

Equity investors’ sentiment at the local bourse remains weak as buyers continue to adopt a cautious strategy giving room for more sellers on Custom Street.

“Unlike the past week, where the market was muted in terms of corporate action, we expect an influx of corporate disclosures of full-year 2020 numbers this week. We expect earnings and bargain hunting in oversold stocks to make a case for the equities”, United Capital research analysts said.

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The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 0.08 percent to 40,154.09 points from 40,186.70 points the preceding day while market capitalisation decreased by N18 billion, from N21.026 trillion to N21.008 trillion.

Monday’s dip pushed higher the negative return recorded this month now at -5.33percent; while the year-to-date (YtD) negative return increased to 0.29percent.

In 4,953 deals, investors exchanged 289,338,344 units valued at N3.573 billion. FBN Holdings, United Capital, GTBank, UBA and Zenith Bank were actively traded stocks on Monday.