Investors lose N40bn in equities market

The equities market opened the week negative investors lost 40.7 billion as market capitalisation declined to 14.8trillion while year to date return worsened to 5.6 per cent.

The All-Share Index lost 0.3 percent due to sell-offs in MTNN (-0.4percent), BUA Cement (-1.5percent) and Flourmill (-4.5percent) to close at 28,337.49 points.

Activity level was mixed as volume traded fell 3.9 percent to 369.2m units while value traded rose 30.6percent to 5.1bn.

The most active stocks by volume were UBA (95.1m units), Guaranty (65.5m units) and Zenith (47.2m units) while Guaranty (1.9bn), Zenith (944.3m) and UBA (678.7m) led by value.

Sector performance was uninspiring as all indices our coverage lost save Oil & Gas index which gained 1.4percent due to buying interest in Eterna (+9.9percent ) and Seplat (+2.4 percent ).

The Insurance and Consumer Goods indices lost the most, down 1.8percent and 0.9percent respectively due to sell-offs in Mansard (-9.7percent) and AIICO (-3.6percent) as well as Flourmill (-4.5percent) and International Brewery (-9.1percent ).

Similarly, the Industrial Goods, AFR-ICT and Banking indices declined 0.5 percent, 0.2 percent and 0.1 percent respectively on the back of price depreciation in BUA Cement (-1.5 percent ), MTNN (-0. 4 percent ) Zenith (-0.3 percent).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth rose to 0.8x from the 0.6x recorded in the previous session as 13 stocks gained against 16 decliners.