Bears continue dominance as Index down 0.40% Thursday

The bears continued to dominate the equities market, as the All-Share Index (ASI) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) dipped further, by 0.40 per cent, to 40,915.17 points on Thursday.

The Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns dipped to -0.85 per cent and 6.99 per cent, respectively.

The Oil & Gas (-1.80%) index recorded the largest loss, followed by the Consumer Goods (-0.13%) and Banking (-0.02%) indices, owing to selloffs of SEPLAT (-3.33%), DANGSUGAR (-1.07%), and WEMABANK (-4.55%) shares respectively.

On the flip side, the Industrial Goods (+0.06%) and Insurance (+0.02%) indices closed in the green, following gains in the shares of CCNN (+9.96%) and LINKASSURE (+4.60%) respectively.

Market breadth remained negative, with 26 losers and 22 gainers, led by NIGERINS (-7.41%) and CCNN (+9.96%) respectively. Total volume and value of trades decreased by 28.19% and 59.06% to 244.92 million units and NGN4.10 billion, respectively, exchanged in 3,804 deals.

Our medium-to-long-term outlook for risky assets remains positive, amidst still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals, analysts at Cordros Capital said.