Sell pressure persists on Nigerian bourse as Index down 0.43% Tuesday

Proceedings in the equities market on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) remained negative on Tuesday with the All-Share Index (ASI) dropping for the fourth consecutive session – longest streak of losses since 28th March – by 0.43 per cent to 40,249.29 points, amidst persisting sell pressure in value stocks.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderated to -2.47 per cent and 5.25 per cent respectively.

The Oil & Gas (-0.79%), Consumer Goods (-0.47%), and Banking (-0.39%) indices closed lower, on the back of selloffs of the shares of ETERNA (-8.55%), HONYFLOUR (-5.00%), and FBNH (-1.40%), respectively.

Meanwhile, demand for AIICO (+4.84%) and CCNN (+5.00%) stocks were major drivers of gains in the Insurance (+1.26%) and Industrial Goods (+0.03%) indices, respectively.

Market breadth turned negative, with 33 losers and 19 gainers, led by IKEJAHOTEL (+9.68%) and ETERNA (-8.55%) respectively.

Total volume of trades posted an uptick of 3.68% to 281.26 million units, with IKEJAHOTEL (34.55 million units) accounting for 12.28% of total volume, in what was continued interest in the stock, following the lifting of the suspension on its trading yesterday.

Value of trades also improved significantly by 77.68 per cent to NGN4.09 billion, traded in 4,304 deals.

While continued selloffs suggest investors should trade equities cautiously, particularly in the short term, still-strengthening macroeconomic fundamentals remain supportive of gains in the medium to long term. Analysts at Cordros Capital advised.