After rallying 3.9% on the eve Christmas, the local bourse reversed gains on Thursday, as the NSEASI tumbled 0.86% to close at 31,692.63 points. Investors’ wealth sank N100.2bn to N11.6tn while YTD return worsened to -17.1%. Activity level weakened as volume and value traded were down -36.7% and -49.8% to N452.3mn and N2.6bn respectively.
Performance across sectors was bullish as 3 of 6 sector indices we track closed in the green territory with the Agriculture index closing flat. The Oil & Gas (+1.3%), Consumer Goods (+4bps) and Banking (+0.2%) sector indices all trended northwards owing to price appreciation in ZENITH (+1.3%), DIAMONDBNK (+9.7%) FO (+9.9%) CONOIL (+10.0%), NB (+0.5%) and NASCON (+1.4%). On the flip side, the laggards were Industrial (-2.1%) and Insurance (-0.7%) majorly dragged by sell pressures in DANGCEM (-3.3%) NEM (-9.2%) and NIGERINS (-8.3%).
Investors sentiment was positive as market breadth remained above the 1.0 threshold to close at 1.9x (previously 7.2x) as 30 stocks advanced while 16 declined. Ex-DANGCEM, the market would have closed higher. Accordingly, we expect the market to close the week sideways amid profit taking and portfolio rebalancing.
