Nigerian bourse extends losses to fourth trading session Wednesday, down 1.1%

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) extended losses to the fourth consecutive trading session on Wednesday as the All-Share Index shed 1.1 per cent to close at 40,802.08 points while the year-to-date (YTD) return further declined to 6.7 per cent. Investors recorded value erosion of N159.4 billion at the close of the day trading.

This bearish performance was mostly due to sell offs in DANGCEM (-0.8%), GUARANTY (-2.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.1%).

As a result of the bearish sentiment, investors lost N159.4 billionn in value as market capitalisation fell to N14.7 trillion.

Activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 51.6 per cent  to 535.0m units while value traded dropped 11.7 per cent to N3.7 billion.

The top traded stocks by volume were CHAMPION (153.9m), SKYEBANK (104.7m) and STERLING (41.2m) while GUARANTY (N531.3m), CHAMPION (N397.1m) and ZENITH (N396.2m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Sector performance was largely bearish as 4 of 5 indices under our coverage closed in the red while one index closed in the green.

The Banking index lost the most, down by 3.4 per cent due to sell offs in GUARANTY (-2.0%), ETI (-4.4%) and UBA (-2.5%) followed by the Industrial Goods index which shed 2.6% on the back of price depreciation in DANGCEM (-0.8%) and WAPCO (-4.7%).

Similarly, the Insurance index declined 0.3 per cent, dragged by losses in WAPIC (-3.4%) and MBENEFIT (-5.4%) while the Oil & Gas index slid 3bps following losses in TOTAL (-0.7%).

On the flipside, the Consumer Goods index was the lone gainer, inching 0.3 per cent higher due to buy interest in UNILEVER (+4.9%) and PZ (+4.6%).