Stock Market Loses N555billion in First Trading Week

Transactions  on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, kick started the year 2016 on negative note run as 190 equities listed declined by N555 billion during the first trading week of the year.

Index movement indicates that the NSE All-Share Index and market capitalization depreciated by 5.63 per cent to close the week at 27,028.39 and N9.296 trillion respectively.

Similarly, all other Indices finished lower during the week, with the exception of the NSE Industrial Goods Index that rose by 0.45 per cent to close at 2,176.44.

At the end of the week, a turnover of 899.604 million shares worth N7.669 billion in 14,164 deals were traded by investors on the floor of the exchange in contrast to a total of 2.965 billion shares valued at N9.364 billion that exchanged hands last week in 7,174 deals.

The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 764.790 million shares valued at N4.858 billion traded in 8,904 deals; thus contributing 85.01 per cent and 63.34 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

The Conglomerates Industry followed with 40.164 million shares worth N100.471 million in 626 deals. The third place was occupied by the Consumer Goods Industry with a turnover of 40.006 million shares worth N1.707 billion in 2,116 deals.

Trading in the top three equities namely Access Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc.(measured by volume) accounted for 339.027 million shares worth N2.800 billion in 3,116 deals, contributing 37.69 per cent and 36.51 per cent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

Day by day trading indicates that the year opens on the bears as local bourse losing 271.93 basis points to close at 28,370.32 points on the first trading day in 2016.

Consequently market capitalization lost N94 billion to settle at N9.757 trillion. In line with the direction of Monday trading sentiments, market activity measured by value and volume traded deceased. The value traded lost 81.5 per cent to settle at N700.5 million while the volume traded decreased to 99 million units respectively. Market breadth settled at a positive as 12 stocks appreciated in prices against 18 depreciations.

The Consumer Services sector started the week on a negative footing, as losses in Nigeria Breweries and Nestle Nigeria drove a negative 2.9 per cent return. Despite the gains of 1.8 per cent in Zenith Bank, the Financial Services sector also returned negative 0.4 per cent based on losses of 4.9 per cent and 0.7 per cent seen in FBN Holdings and Guaranty Trust Bank respectively. Oando’s 1.7 per cent gain contributed to the Oil and Gas sectors 0.1 per cent return. Regardless of the flat daily return in Dangote Cement, the Industrial Goods sector returned negative 0.1 per cent on the back of a 4 per cent decrease in Ashaka Cement share price.