The Nigerian exchange started the trading week bearish, on the back of three consecutive days of gains from last week, which saw the All-Share Index above 54,000 basis point, a price point not traded since July 2008. Declines from highly capitalized companies like MTNN, GTCO and ZENTIHBANK are the reasons for today’s bearish action.
The All-share Index (ASI) depreciated by 0.58% from 54,085.30 basis points to close at 53,772.14 basis point. In the same vein, the Market Capitalization also lost 0.58% to close at N28.99 trillion, losing approximately N169 billion worth of capitalization into the market in one day. Year-to-Date (YtD), the NGX is still one of the top-performing markets in the world as is has gained 25.88% so far.
Market breadth closed positive as TRANSEXPR led 25 gainers, and 17 Losers topped by PRESCO at the end of today’s session. On a sectoral level, 3 of the 5 major indices of the Nigerian Exchange closed negative. NGX Banking, Consumer Goods and Industrial Indices lost 0.26%, 0.11% and 0.11% respectively. The NGX Insurance and Oil and Gas posted gains of 0.65% and 0.07% respectively.
NGX Top ASI gainers
- TRANSEXPR up +9.86% to close at N0.78
- NPFMCRKBK up +9.76% to close at N1.80
- UACN up +9.52% to close at N11.50
- JAIZBANK up +8.97% to close at N0.85
- LIVESTOCK up +6.67% to close at N1.60
NGX Top ASI losers
- PRESCO down – 10.00% to close at N162.00
- UPL down – 8.77% to close at N2.60
- FTNCOCOA down – 8.57% to close at N0.32
- MAYBAKER down – 7.60% to close at N4.01
- WEMABANK down – 6.85% to close at N3.40
Top 3 by Volume
- TRANSCORP – 70,067,271
- ACCESSCORP – 21,248,852
- JAIZBANK – 16,266,479
Top 3 by Value
- NESTLE – N821,853,333.00
- MTNN – N526,465,875.80
- ACCESSCORP – N212,351,006.15
Despite declines seen in the market caused by profit-taking, Q1 results have shown tremendous performance by companies and due to the high inflationary environment, which is, in turn, bringing in higher prices for goods and services, the stellar performance seen by listed companies is expected to continue.
However, due to the increase in the interest rate by the CBN, we may soon begin to see some significant level of downturn as access to funding has become more expensive and investors are also to expect a slowdown in the equity market as the fixed income rate might become appealing to investors in the near term.