By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The bears has sustained its hold on the Nigerian equities market as Year-to-Date (YTD) returns now stands at a negative 22.08 percent.
At the end of trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday all-share index (ASI) went down 2.21 percent to close at 32,203.62 basis points, while market capitalisation fell by N240.61 billion to close at N10.63 trillion.
‘’Today’s decline sent the benchmark index to its lowest value since the 31st of January 2013,’’ Cordros market update affirmed.
According to the report, the bears accelerated in the equities market as significant losses in big names like brewers, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Guinness Nigeria Plc, first listed Nigerian oil and gas upstream firm, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, conglomerate, Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc and cement maker, Dangote Cement Plc resulted in the third consecutive negative session.
The Cordros report further affirmed that all of the five (5) NSE sectoral indices reflected the negative sentiment in the market. The Consumer Goods index topped the losers’ chart with a 2.93 percent decline, the Industrial index followed with a 2.34 percent slide, while the Insurance index fell by 1.40 percent.
Similarly, the Banking and Oil/Gas indices also performed poorly with depreciations of 1.28 percent and 0.78 percent respectively.
Also, at the end of the session, market breadth remained poor with 34 losers and 13 gainers. The Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO)emerged top on the gainers chart with a gain of 0.22 kobo; while soap maker PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc topped the losers table with a loss of N2.05.
Earlier its parent company PZ Cussons Plc said its first-half (H1) operating profit declined four percent (4%), due to challenging trading conditions in Nigeria and the devaluation of the naira towards the end of the period, the company said in its HI trading update.
In terms of turnover, the Nigerian bourse reported that volume traded climbed up 6.21 percent to 376.20 million shares, valued at N6.66 billion and traded in 4,230deals.
‘’We maintain our negative outlook going forward due to the mounting headwinds,’’ the Cordros update said.
