The bears are back, equities decline for 6th consecutive session

Halfway through the business week and the equities market continues down the slope. On The benchmark All-Share-Index closed in the red for the sixth consecutive session on account of 0.27% decline on Wednesday tom close at 26,173.69 (26,364.27 Tuesday).

With investors selling off across the board, the ASI YTD loss has worsened to 8.6%.

The negative close today is mainly ascribed to sell pressures in the banking and consumer goods equities. Most prominent in this category were GUARANTY (-3.5%), ZENITH (-2.8%), ACCESS (-4.6%), PZ (-8.4%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.4%). Banking sector player, GUARANTY has closed red for the sixth consecutive trading session and has been under great sell pressure for the past two weeks.

Market activity today weakened similarly as both volume (146.1 million) and value (N1.0 billion) traded fell 22.7% and 35.3% respectively.

Analysis by sector reported a performance which mirrored the prevailing mood in the market. Asides industrial goods (+0.1 %)  and oil & gas (0.8%) indices, all others declined. The former was propped by a 4.1% gain in CAP while OANDO (+1.0%) pushed for oil. The banking and insurance indices dropped  3.0% and 1.3% respectively whilst the consumer goods  index slid 0.39%.

Investor was unchanged with market breadth closing at 0.4X (0.5x Tuesday)) on the back of eleven advancers and twenty seven decliners. CAP (+4.06%) continued its gaining streak, topping the gainers’ chart with DANGSUGAR (+2.94%), UPL (+2.63%), LIVESTOCK (+2.50%) and REDSTAREX (+2.38%) trailing. PZ (-8.39%), FLOURMILL (-5.00%), NASCON (-4.90%), CONTINSURE (-4.90%) and DANGFLOUR (-4.83%) led the losers’ table.

Bargain hunting is expected towards the end of the week on account of sustained sell pressure that continues to lean on market valuation. Given the close relationship with the United States and Nigeria, investors may tread in somewhat caution on the back of the reaction of investors in the US market to an unanticipated Trump win.

CHAM emerged the toast of investors today with 40.1 million units traded at a value of N20.1 million.  GUARANTY followed (189.3 million), trailed by UBA (14.1 million), FBNH (13.9 million) and ACCESS (7.5 million)