Activities in the equities market remained bearish, as the All Share Index dipped further, by 0.81 percent, to 36,963.70 points, amidst still negative sentiments.
As a result, the Year-to-Date, YtD and Month-to-Date, M tD returns moderated to -3.35 percent and -3.43percent, respectively.
All sector indices – Industrial Goods (-2.36 percent), Oil & Gas (-1.31 percent), Consumer Goods (-1.18 percent), and Banking (-0.93 percent) – save for the Insurance index (+0.15 percent), continued to decline.
This was largely attributable to sell pressure in the shares of WAPCO (-18.00 percent), OANDO (-9.48 percent), PZ (-9.94 percent), and Guaranty Trust Bank (-1.13 percent), as well as investor interest in Sovereign Insurance (+8.00percent) shares, respectively.
Market breadth remained negative, with 31 laggards and 14 gainers, led by Julius Berger (-10.00 percent) and Sovereign Insurance (+8.00 percent), respectively. Total volume of trades dipped by 32.84 percent to 203.8 million units, while total value of trades increased by 17.09 percent to N2.39 billion, exchanged in 4,179 deals.
Analysts at Cordros Capital, a Lagos based investment firm said: “In our view, the continued selloffs call for cautious trading among investors, amidst absence of a near-term one-off positive catalyst in the short to medium term. However, still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals remain supportive of gains on the long term.”