Nigeria’s stocks market opened this new week in red (-0.38percent) against market watchers’ earlier expectation amid the preceding bullish week. Though, the stock market’s year-to-date (YtD) return still remains positive at 1.10percent.
As the market showed little room for continued bargain hunting on the first trading day of this week, investors booked a loss of about N81billion at the close of Monday’s trading session.
No thanks to stocks like Sovereign Trust Insurance which led the losers table from, 24kobo to 22kobo, down by 2kobo or 8.33percent. Also, Nigerian Breweries Plc decreased from N49.50 to N46.50, losing N3 or 6.06percent, while AIICO Insurance decreased from 95kobo to 90kobo, down 5kobo or 5.26percent.
The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation depreciated from week-open highs of 40,868.36points and N21.296trillion respectively 40,714.22 points and N21.215trillion.
FBN Holdings, Ecobank Transnational, Chams, Zenith Bank, and GTCO were the most traded stocks on the Nigerian Exchange Limited. In 4,395 deals, investors exchanged 191,311,638 shares valued at N2.590billion.
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In their recommendation for this week, Lagos-based Meristem who attributed the positive sentiment on equities last week mainly to the attractive prices said they expect the positive mood to be sustained this week “as we see more room for continued bargain hunting”.
“However, we do not rule out the possibility of profit-taking on counters that gained last week,” meristem analysts said in their October 11 note.
“We do anticipate a mixed trading session to start the week, as investors begin profit-taking activities”, Vetiva research analysts had said in October 11 note.
