The equities market backtracked on Thursday following as investors reacted to a 50 basis points increase in the benchmark interest rate over fear gauge following economic slowdown – both inflation and interest rate moving higher could taper economic performance, and keep growth in check.
Nigeria’s benchmark interest rate jumps to 18.5% as the monetary authority continues inflation fighting, albeit, unsuccessful.
Market analysts expect funds to flow into the fixed income securities on an expectation of yield repricing on naira assets.
Spurred by large selloffs in Geregu Power Plc and GTCO shares, equities investors reported huge losses of about N58 billion while moving to rebalance their books for optimal returns after four days of gaining streaks.
Consequent to selloffs, key performance indicators dipped by 0.20%, causing a year-to-date return to slow down to +3.06%. Market data shows that the market index or All-Share Index decreased by 105.96 basis points today, representing a decline to close at 52,821.64 points.
The market witnessed stocks making upward movements, though the gainers’ strength was weak enough to upturn equities market fortune – key indices slump on selloffs on mid-cap stocks.
In their separate market briefs, stockbrokers said trading activities were mixed, as the total volume traded for the day dropped by -17.14%. Meanwhile, the total value increased by +17.16%. Atlass Portfolios Limited reported that approximately 377.14 million units valued at ₦9,178.32 million were transacted in 5,879 deals.
UBA was the most traded stock in terms of volume, accounting for 23.06% of the total volume of trades, followed by ACCESSCORP (18.03%), ZENITH BANK (10.54%), GTCO (8.29%), and GEREGU (3.51%) to complete the top 5 on the volume chart.
GEREGU was also the most traded stock in value terms, with 42.72% of the total value of trades on the exchange. FTNCOCOA topped the advancers’ chart with a price appreciation of 8.77 percent.
The company was trailed by TANTALIZER (8.33%), WAPIC (7.14%), TOTAL (+6.87%), RTBRISCOE (+5.88%), and seventeen others, stockbrokers’ records showed.
Twenty-two stocks depreciated, where CONOIL was the top loser, with a price depreciation of -9.92% to close at ₦43.60. UNILEVER declined by 8.28%, ETERNA pullback by 6.21% and PZ lost 6.11% of its market valuation and JAPAULGOLD slipped by 5.71%
Following a bearish outing, the market breadth closed par, recording 22 gainers and losers, while the sector performance closed negative, data from the Nigerian Exchange showed.
On Thursday, four out of the five major market sectors were down, led by the Consumer goods sector (-0.14%), followed by the Banking sector (-0.11%), the Insurance sector (-0.08%), and the Industrial sector (-0.07%), while the Oil & Gas sector grew by +0.23%.
Overall, equities market capitalisation decreased by ₦57.70 billion, representing a drop of -0.20% to close at ₦28,761.70 trillion from ₦28,819.40 trillion the previous day.
