The Local bourse trended southwards on Monday when it opened the trading week marginally lower, as the index depreciated by 0.02 per cent to close at 36,930.83 points compared with the appreciation of 0.17 per cent recorded in the previous trading day while year-to-date moderated to 37.42 per cent.
The negative performance was primarily due to losses in Zenith Bank (-1.0%), United Bank for Africa (-2.0%), International Breweries (-3.5%) and Total Nigeria (-4.7%).
Similarly, market capitalization shed N3.0 billion to settle at N12.8 trillion. Activity level was mixed as volume improved 29.2 per cent to settle at 466.5 million units while value traded declined 21.2 per cent to close at N2.9 trillion.
Performance across sectors was largely bearish as three of five sectoral indices closed in the red, one closed in the green and the other flat. The banking index emerged the lone gainer owing to price appreciation in Guaranty Trust Bank (+1.3%).
The negative performers were led by the Insurance index, which shed 0.8 per cent on account of sell-offs in MANSARD (-3.2%) and NEM (-3.7%). The Oil & Gas index trailed, down 0.7 per cent due to a downtick in TOTAL (-4.7%) while profit taking in International Breweries (-3.5%) also dragged the consumer goods index 0.2 per cent lower day on day.
Despite the market’s bullish performance, investors’ sentiment, as measured by market breadth (advancers/decliners’ ratio), improved to 1.2x from 1.1x recorded on Friday as 23 stocks advanced against 19 decliners.
The best performing stocks were Diamond Bank (+9.4%), United Capital (+7.0%) and Fidelity Bank (+5.0%) while the worst performers were Champion Breweries (-4.9%), Total Nigeria (-4.7%) and Airline Service and Logistic (-4.4%).
Given the continued rally in global oil prices and subsequent improved buying interest in Nigerian assets, we expect investor sentiment to remain positive in the near term although we do not rule out possibility of profit taking in some low cap stocks that have recently attracted positive investor sentiment.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
