[Bull Trap] Nigerian Stocks Suffer Second Straight Day of Losses

The equities market mirrored yesterday’s negative mood, as the NSEASI declined by 1.60% to further drag market return to –15.19% YTD. Volume and value of transactions also declined by 37.75% and 36.07% respectively, just as the market capitalization declined to NGN10.02tn at the close of business today. Market breadth (0.92x) skewed slightly in favour of decliners as 24 stocks appreciated against 26 losers.

VONO topped the outperformers at the end of today’s trading session, with price appreciation of 9.28% to close at NGN1.06. Other counters that featured on the gainers’ chart were TRANSEXPR (+7.14 %), STANBIC (+ 5.45%), TRANSCORP (+5.02 %), and INTBREW (+5.00 %). On the other hand, DANGCEM, PZ and FLOURMILL all led the underperformers, declining by 5.00 % apiece to close at NGN165.30, NGN25.23, and NGN22.06 respectively. Other decliners were NNFM and AFRIPRUD, shedding 4.97% and 4.96% in that order.

The NSE sector indices also reflected the market’s bearish mood as most of the sectors pared accordingly. NSEIND (-4.23%), NSEFBT10 (-0.61%), NSEOILG5 (-0.35%) and NSEINS10 (- 0.14%) pared respectively. Only the NSEBNK10 index advanced (+0.14%) in the day.

We opine that the two days of gains earlier in the week was responsible for the profit taking activity witnessed in the market today. We, expect this to persist on the last trading day of the week, and so we advise investors to trade with caution.