By Mike Abba
Amid bearish performance in the Nigerian stocks market last week, investors booked N73 billion loss as market fundamentals closed in the negative territory.
Data from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) showed that the All-Share Index (ASI) dipped by 416.70 points or 1.12 per cent week-on-week to close at 36,703.68 points while Year-To-Date return moderated to 36.6 per cent. Accordingly, investors lost N73 billion as market capitalisation closed at N12.774 trillion.
Capital market attributed the decline in the equities market to the release of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) semi-annual index review which removed or reclassified stocks from the Main Frontier Markets Index and MSCI Frontier Small Cap Index.
Sector performance was largely negative, except for Oil and Gas index up 0.8 per cent owing to price appreciation in Forte Oil and Mobil. The losers were led by the Consumer Goods index which fell 2.9 per cent as investors sold positions in Nigerian Breweries, Nestle and Unilever.
Furthermore, the Insurance and Banking indices trailed, shedding 1.98 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively, following sell pressures in Linkage Assurance, Mansard Insurance, Zenith Bank and Access Bank. Likewise, a price depreciation in Wapco dragged the Industrial Goods Index 1.03 per cent lower.
On the other hand, activity level improved as average value and volume traded increased by 113 per cent to 2.8 billion shares, valued at N54.78 billion and traded in 17,792 deals. Market breadth closed negative recording 20 gainers against 43 losers.
Last week’s top performers include AG Leventis which was up by 27.27 per cent, Forte Oil followed with a gain 10.25 per cent, while BOC Gases appreciated by 9.88 per cent. On the other side, Caverton led the losers table by 21.43 per cent, followed by Linkage Assurance with a decline of 17.65 per cent, while CI Leasing shed 13.77 per cent.
Analysts believe that, notwithstanding the MSCI development, gradual improvement in the economic space will impact positively on the market in the week.
