Nigerian bourse opens the week bearish as Index down 0.11%

Bearish sentiments returned on the Nigerian bourse on Monday, as the market All-Share Index (ASI) dipped by 0.11 per cent to 41,172.82 points due to massive sell-off of value stocks.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns inched lower to -0.23 per cent and +7.66 per cent respectively.

Losses in the Consumer Goods (-0.73%) and Banking (-0.31%) indices muted gains posted by the Industrial Goods (+0.39%), Oil & Gas (+0.15%), and Insurance (+0.09%) indices.

This was largely driven by profit-taking in the shares of NB (-0.78%) and FBNH (-2.85%), as well as demands for DANGCEM (+1.02%), OANDO (+4.79%), and AIICO (+4.35%) shares, respectively.

Market breadth remained positive, with 21 gainers and 18 loses, led by ETERNA (+9.76%) and UNITYBNK (-5.00%) respectively.

In addition to ETERNA, it is worth noting today’s strong interest in the shares of CILEASING (+5.00%) and MAYBAKER (+3.38%). Interestingly, YtD, ETERNA and CILEASING have delivered 41% and 39%, respectively. Total volume of trades closed lower by 21.94% to 221.40 million units, valued at NGN257 billion (-39.25%), and exchanged in 5,629 deals.

“Despite the loss in today’s session, we reiterate our bullish bias for equities in the medium to long term, as still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals continue to make a case for positive returns”. Analysts at Cordros Capital said.