Investors lost N98.8bn on sustained bearish performance

The All Share Index (ASI) yesterday declined 0.8% to 32,022.23 points as YTD loss worsened to -16.3%.
Investors in the equity segment of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) lost N98.8bn at the close of business yesterday which saw market capitalization fall to N11.7tn, the lowest in 14 months.
Sustained exits in NESTLE (-5.5%), WAPCO (-10.0%), ACCESS (-5.0%) and DANGSUGAR (-2.1%) drove the negative performance of the market.
Similarly, activity level weakened as volume and value traded moderated 29.7% and 46.4% to 173.4m units and N3.7bn respectively. GUARANTY (28.2m), ZENITH (25.9m) and SKYEBANK (18.9m) were top traded by volume while DANGCEM (N1.0bn), GUARANTY (N0.9bn) and ZENITH (N0.5bn) were top traded stocks by value.
All sectors closed negative save for the Banking index which gained a marginal 1bp due to continued bargain hunting in GUARANTY (+1.0%) and UBA (+1.4%).
On the flipside, the Industrial Goods index led decliners, down 3.3% due to sell-offs in WAPCO (-10.0%) and CCNN (-9.9%). Similarly, the Consumer Goods index lost 2.3% on the back of losses in NESTLE (-5.5) and DANGSUGAR (-2.1%) while the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices shed 1.6% and 0.7% respectively on sustained declines in WAPIC (-7.5%),LINKASSUR (-7.1), FORTE (-7.4%) and CONOIL (-9.9%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) stood at 0.3x as 9 stocks appreciated compared with 26 stocks that declined.
The best performing stocks were SKYEBANK (+9.8%), UNITY (+9.0%) and TRANSCORP (+4.6%) while WAPCO (-10.0%), CCNN (-9.9%) and CONOIL (-9.9%) lost the most.