Investors' Bearish Attitude Costs NGX Equities Market N12 Billion Loss

Trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Market closed in a disappointing fashion as profit-taking investors outnumbered buying opportunistic investors. Profit-taking investors increased their sell-off activities on stocks of GTCO (-1.14%), ZENITH BANK (-1.01%), UBN (-6.2%), and UPDCREIT (-9.8%).

As a result of these profit-taking activities, the market capitalization lost a mammoth NGN12 billion as it closed at NGN22.566.78 trillion, down from its previous day’s close of NGN22.578 trillion.

Accordingly, the Week-to-Date declined by -0.14%, while the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date gains moderated to +2.9% and +7.4%, respectively.

Despite the slightly bullish drive that pushed the NGX ASI by 5.53% and 57.16% in the volume and value sections of trades, respectively, to close at 224.9 million units sold, valued at over NGN3.7 billion, and traded in 4,331 transactions.

The All Share Index still dipped by -0.05% as it closed at 43,248.05 basis points.

ACCESS was the most traded stock by volume at 42.18 million units, taking up exactly 18.75% of shares traded, closely followed by ZENITH BANK with 38.97 million units, representing 17.33%, while ZENITH BANK was the most traded stock by value at NGN935.4 million.

On the sector analysis, the insurance indices (+1.6%) continue to remain investors' choice for portfolio diversification, closely followed by the banking (+0.3%) indices. While the oil and gas (-0.4%) and consumer goods (-0.2%) indices recorded declines, The Industrial Goods index closed flat, which has been the trend throughout the month of November.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment remained negative as 23 companies lost relative to 11 companies that gained.

Finally, the gainers chart was dominated by AIICO (+9.2%), ACCESS (+4.4%), WAPIC (+4.17%), ETI (+3.73%) and FCMB (+3.33%), respectively, while the losers chart was led by UPDCREIT (-9.89%), IKEJAHOTEL (-9.63%), CHAMS (-9.09%) and UBN (-6.19%).