The equities market sustained the bearish sentiments for the second consecutive trading day of the week. NSEASI pared 0.63% to pressure YtD return to -0.42%, just as 26 stocks advanced against 31 decliners. Volume traded declined by 10.30%, while market turnover advanced by 21.96%.
With 5.00% gains apiece, UBA and PZ emerged as the top gainers during today’s trading, while MAYBAKER, RTBRISCOE and CUTIX trailed with 4.84%, 4.71% and 4.57% gains in that order. Contrarily, STANBIC rocked the bottom with a 5.00 loss to close at NGN27.55. Other top underperformers included NAHCO (-4.91%), LIVESTOCK (-4.74%), TRANSEXPR (- 4.65%) and CADBURY (-4.41%).
All NSE-sector indices trended southward save for NSEINS10, which climbed by a marginal 0.19%, while NSEFBT10, NSEOILG5 and NSEBNK10 returned respective losses of 1.20%, 1.03% and 0.73%.
Markets across Africa were also bearish as at the time of this report, save for S/Africa (+0.44%) and Kenya (+0.28%) which were in the positive zone.
As we go along in the Q1:2015 earnings season, we expect speculative and bargain hunting decisions to determine market direction. We therefore preach cautious trading, as we advise investors to focus on long term prospects of companies rather than short-term gains.
