Nigeria’s stock market opens new week in red

Nigeria’s stock market opened a new trading week in red confirming market watchers earlier expectations of profit taking on equities that gained last week.

The equities market of Africa’s largest economy had recorded positive close to the holiday shortened trading week as investors booked about N147billion gain.

Except Oil & Gas Index (+0.03percent), all other sectoral indices closed in red – Banking Index (-0.59percent), Consumer Goods Index (-0.07percent), Industrial Index (-0.63percent), and Insurance Index (-0.29percent).

“We expect trading sessions to be a mix of bargain hunting and profit-taking activities”, said Afrinvest research analysts in their May 17 note to investors.

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At the close of trading on Monday May 17, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation which opened at 39,481.89 points and N20.578trillion respectively, decreased to 39,307.19 points and N20.487trillion.

“We acknowledge the relatively low prices of counters across sectors and the bargain-hunting opportunities this present, however, we expect investors to take profit on stocks that gained last week.

“On this note, we expect the equities market to close on a negative note this week”, Lagos-based research analysts at Meristem also said in the May 17 note.

Investors lost about N91billion, pushing the market’s negative return higher year-to-date (YtD) at -2.39percent. In 4,394 deals, equity investors exchanged 357,693,311 units valued N3.564billion.

“We expect investors to book profits on gains made in the past weeks. We also see muted investor activity later in the week as we expect investors’ focus to be on the bond auction in light of the shock Nigerian Treasury Bills (NT-bills) Primary Market Auction (PMA) results”, according to United Capital research.