NGX Equity Market Continues Downward Trend

Capital market analysts were hopeful of a revival in the NGX Equities market yesterday following MTNN's new public offerings and the Airtel Africa takeover completion deal.

Apparently, investors were less motivated to arrest subsistence losses over the last week of equity trading.

Consequently, investors' sell-off of MTN (-1.1%), GTCO (-0.4%), and ZENITHBANK (-1.9%) cost the All Share Index to decline by 0.5% from its previous day figure of 42,463.16 basis points and close at 42,247.98 basis points.

Accordingly, the week-to-date and month-to-date losses increased to -2.45% and -2.31%, respectively, while the year-to-date gain moderated to +4.9%.

However, following yesterday's ASI decline, the market lost another NGN113 billion as its capitalization fell to NGN 22,044 trillion from its previous day figure of NGN22,157.22 trillion.

Furthermore, the total volume of trades declined by 3.4% to 324.02 million units, valued at NGN5.29 billion and exchanged in 4,706 deals.

FBNH, continuing from its previous day's performance, was the most traded stock by volume, taking up 39.99% of the volume traded and valued at 113.4 million units sold and NGN1.35 billion, respectively.

FBNH was followed by GTCO, which took up 10.33% of the volume trade share worth 33.5 million units.

SEPLAT shares valued at NGN1 billion took up 19.07% of the share value traded.

On the sector analysis, the banking (-1.2%), insurance (-2.2%) and oil & gas (-3.5%) indices declined, while the industrial goods (-0.1%) index gained.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative, as 31 companies lost relative to 16 gainers.

The gainers' chart was dominated by MEYER (+10.0%), NEM (+7.3%), and ROYALEX (+5.88%), respectively, while the losers' chart was led by BOCGAS (-10.0%), TRANSEXPR (-9.0%), MANSARD (+7.55%), and AIICO (-7.32%).

In conclusion, we expect a recovery as the NGX ASI Index hits a critical support line of 42,240 basis points. Added to the fact that investors' bullish drive will be ignited because of MTNN's new public offering and AIRTELAFRICA's complete takeover of AIRTEL NIGERIA operation in Nigeria.