Nigerian Market Round-Up: Profit-taking continues as the local bourse sheds 219bps

NSE ASI further sheds 219bps: The equities market recorded more losses today as investors continued to book gains from last week's rally. The All Share Index lost 766.5 points to close at 34,175.2 points, compared to yesterday's 34,941.8 points even as the market capitalization also shed N260.4bn to close at N11.6trn (US$58.3bn).  Sell pressure in counters like OANDO (-9.7%), NB (-5.7%), WAPCO (-5.0%), SEPLAT (-5.0%), DANGCEM (-1.1%) and other large-cap banking stocks contributed to the loss in the market today. In the same vein, market activity level was low as only 10 stocks gained against declines in 44 stocks to peg the market breadth at 0.2x. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) shows that the market is still in the "Overbought" region. Hence, we expect to see more profit-taking in the market in the next trading session.

Losses across all sectors:  The bearish trend cut across all sectors with the Services sector posting the largest loss as it returned -3.8% on the back of declines in TRANSCORP (-4.9%) driven partly by the company's weak earnings release. Depreciation in OANDO (-9.7%) and SEPLAT (-5.0%) also weakened the Oil and Gas sector as it posted -3.5% daily return. |The Financial Services sector was also depressed by losses in the banking counters such as GUARANTY (-5.7%), ZENITHBANK (-5.0%), UBA (-1.1%), FBNH (-0.3%) as the sector returned -3.0%. Declines in highly capitalised NB (-5.0%), WAPCO (-5.0%) and DANGCEM (-1.1%) weighed down the Consumer and Industrial Goods sectors as they returned -2.0% and -1.4% respectively.

Headline	Today	Previous Session	Change
NSE All Share Index (points)	34,175.2	34,941.8	-2.2%
Market Capitalization  (N'bn)	11,607.6	11,868.0	-2.2%
Market Capitalization  ($'mn)	58,285.9	59,587.2	-2.2%
Total Value Traded (N'mn)	4,662.5	8,313.2	-43.9%
Total Value Traded ($'mn)	23.4	41.7	-43.9%
Total Volume Traded (Mn Units)	704.1	581.8	21.0%

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Low demand for bonds

Investors remained bearish on bond instruments today as yields for all notes increased. Thus the average yield increased by 37bps to 14.7%. The Treasury Bills market also traded down as the average yield added 9bps to close at 14.0%. Yield for the 12M instrument increased by 1bp while yields for the 3M and 6M instruments decreased by 11bp and 26bps respectively.  

The USD/NGN remained relatively flattish with a marginal gain of 1bp to close at N199.15/US$ at the interbank market today.