Nigerian bourse ended the fourth trading session on a negative note. Nigeria’s All-share index depreciated by 0.31% today to 40,095.49 index points.

Year-to-date return and market capitalization settled at -0.43% and N20.97 trillion respectively.

• A total volume of 326.0 million units of shares, valued at N3.7 1billion exchanged hands in 4,567 deals.
• Across coverage sectors, the performance was mostly negative as most tracked indices finished south. The NSE banking, consumer goods, and oil & gas fell by 1.44%, 0.79%, and 0.15% respectively.
• On the flip side, the NSE insurance improved by 0.24%, while the industrial index closed flat.
• Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth was negative with 24 decliners and 14 advancers. LASACO (-9.68%) led the laggards today, while CHAMS (+9.09%) finished top gainer.

Top gainers

1. CHAMS up 9.09% to close at N0.24
2. ROYALEX up 8.00% to close at N0.27
3. WEMABANK up 7.69% to close at N0.7
4. REDSTAREX up 5.77% to close at N3.3
5. PRESTIGE up 4.55% to close at N0.46

Top losers

1. LASACO down 9.68% to close at N1.24
2. FIDSON down 8.41% to close at N4.9
3. ETI down 6.31% to close at N5.2
4. MBENEFIT down 5.13% to close at N0.37
5. UACN down 5.03% to close at N7.55

Outlook

Nigerian stocks ended the second trading session of the week on a bearish note amid profit-taking across the market spectrum.

• Downtrend was driven by price depreciation medium and large capitalized stocks amongst which are; ETI, FIDSON, UACN.
• That being said, Nairametrics envisages cautious buying on the account that certain market indicators reveal investors are taking some of their gains across the market spectrum.

The sell-off of shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange has triggered an N24.9 billion loss in the market capitalization of Flour Millers since the beginning of February, as wary investors offload.

It is important to note that the Nigerian Equity Market has been on the downward trend since the beginning of February, as wary investors sell off stakes in companies as the yields in the money market become attractive.

The results of this move led to a decline in the shares of companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, including a decline in the shares of Flour millers listed on the bourse.

A review of the performance of the stocks of these Flour millers on NSE revealed that the market capitalization of FLOUR MILLS, HONYFLOUR, and Northern Nigeria Flour Mills from the open of trade on February 1 till the close of trading activities on February 24 has declined from N154 billion to N129 billion.

How they have all performed

FlourMills has declined from N142.3 billion to N118.3 billion. However, the market cap of Honeywell Flour Mills has also declined, albeit marginally from N10.31 billion to N9.91 billion, while that of NNFM has declined from N1.72 billion to N1.25 billion. When added up, the three millers have lost N24.85 billion in market capitalization.

However, Flour Mills, the largest miller on NSE lost the most with N23.98 billion, as a percentage of market capitalization. Flour Mills is down by 16.85%.

Market activity

At the end of trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the shares of Flour Mills declined by 6.9% to close at N28.85 per share, as investors sell off 5,029,161 ordinary shares of the company worth N143,009,264.10.

Shares of Honeywell at the close of trading activities today declined by 1.6%, while shares of Northern Nigeria Flour Mills remained unchanged at N7.02 per share.

The Consumer good index to which the Flour millers belong has fallen by 6.1% year since the beginning of February, compared to the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index -5.17%.