The Nigerian equities market began the week on a negative note, as the NSEASI declined by 0.17% to trim the YtD return to -0.02%. Volume and value of transactions traded in either direction, with volume traded declining by 13.37%, while market turnover advanced by 71.05%. Market breadth (0.87x) favoured the decliners as 26 stocks appreciated in value, while 30 stocks shed points.
VITAFOAM emerged the top gainer during today’s trading, with a 10.15% gain. The ticker was closely followed by REDSTAREX (9.79%), FBHN (7.71%), UPL (4.97%) and HONYFLOUR (4.88%). Contrarily, UNITYBNK led the losers’ chart, after it pared by 9.51%. Other top underperformers included; MANSARD (-5.00%), TRANSEXPR (-4.92%), DANGFLOUR (-4.91%) and VONO (-4.85%).
Most NSE-sector indices traded northwards, save for the NSEINS10 index which pared by 1.44%. The NSEBNK10 index returned the highest gain of 0.69%, trailed by the NSEOILG5 (0.68%) and NSEFBT10 (0.43%) indices.
The outcome of today’s market performance was largely in line with our expectation, as we anticipated profit-taking on stocks which significantly appreciated in value in the previous week. Subsequently, we advise cautious trading during the week, as we expect the negative sentiment to persist for most of trading days of the week. This is premised on our anticipation of a dearth of news flows during the week, which may consequently adversely affect the direction of market activities.
