NSE Sustains Bearish Trend, Loses 0.31% Week-on-Week…
In the just concluded week, the local equities market further closed in negative territory amid sustained profit taking activity as investors generally patronise fixed income assets. The decline in overall market performance was partly offset by gains on the share prices of DANGCEM and SEPLAT (as they respectively closed the week higher by 1.33% and 7.27%).
Hence, the main market index, NSE ASI, marginally fell to 31,041.42 points, having lost 0.31% w-o-w. Reflective of the sell-offs, NSE Banking, NSE Insurance and NSE Industrial indices closed in negative territory, falling by 2.84%, 1.96% and 2.42% to 403.96 points, 125.98 points and 1,239.73 points respectively. However, NSE Consumer Goods and NSE Oil/Gas indices closed in positive territory, rising by 1.07% and 3.56% to 711.29 points and 290.52 points respectively.
Meanwhile, activities in the market was fairly upbeat as transaction volumes and Naira votes increased by 119.52% and 4.60% to 2.63 billion shares and N12.79 billion respectively; however, total deals declined by 14.95% to 15,553 deals.
In the new week, we expect the Nigerian equities market to close in positive territory as investors continue to take advantage of the low share prices of most companies that have posted positive financial results and increased dividend payout. More so, with the declining stop rates for most maturities, we expect investors to shift funds in favour of equities.