Market down 1.51% as bear stages come back on Nigerian bourse Wednesday

The four-day winning streak following on The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) came to a halt on Wednesday due to massive sell-off on the shares of 23 companies, resulting in loss of N236 billion by investors on The Exchange.

Also, the market All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 1.51 per cent (the biggest loss in the month so far) to 42,952.70 points, owing to investors booking profit on previous gains in major stocks.

Consequently, the Month-to-Date return turned to a loss of 0.87 per cent, while the Year-to-Date gain moderated to 12.31 per cent.

Extended profit-taking in DANGCEM (-3.60%), GUARANTY (-1.86%), NESTLE (-0.36%), and TOTAL (-3.92%) shares led to negative returns in the Industrial Goods (-3.60%), Banking (-0.90%), Consumer Goods (-0.74%), and Oil & Gas (-0.50%) indices. On the flip side, the Insurance (+0.35%) index posted a gain, following demand for the shares of HMARKINS (+6.06%).

Market breadth was however positive, with 26 gainers and 23 losers, led by ETERNA (+10.15%) and UNITYBNK (-9.24%) shares. Total volume of trades declined by 39.32% to 270.33 million, valued at NGN5.18 billion, and exchanged in 4,799 deals.

Despite loss in today’s session, analysts believe legroom for gains still exist; more so, as investors position ahead of Q4-2017 corporate earnings releases.