The domestic equity market started the week on a negative note, as the NSE All-Share Index dipped by 0.2% yesterday, closing at 35,064.4pts. Consequently, the YTD return weakened to +30.6% and investors lost N47.6bn in value, as market capitalization closed at 18.3bn.
Activity level was mixed as total value traded decreased by 25.5% to N3.2bn and volume increased by 10.7% to N324.3mn.
Analyzing the performance by sector, three out of the five sectors under our coverage closed negative.
Notably, the Banking (-0.8%) sector led the laggards, amid price declines in stocks like ETI (-8.5%), ZENITH (-1.0%) and GUARANTY (-0.3%). The Consumer Goods (-0.6%) sector followed suit, dragged by losses in DANGSUGAR (-2.2%) and NB (-1.8%). Also, the Industrial Goods (-0.1%) sector weakened, due to sell-offs in WAPCO (-0.9%). The Oil and Gas (+0.5%) sector led the gainers as OANDO (+1.5%) rose on bargain hunting.
Lastly, the Insurance (+0.2%) sector gained supported by gains in WAPIC (+5.0%).
Overall, investor sentiment strengthened as market breadth expanded to 1.1x in yesterday’s session as against 0.7x in the previous session as 17 stocks advanced while 15 stocks declined. The stronger investor sentiment despite bearish proceedings indicates investors might still have some risk appetite.
That said, we expect the local bourse to continue to trade sideways with a bearish bias given the market remains overbought technically.
