Nigerian stocks shed 0.29 per cent on Monday as the pressure to offload financial services equities weighed on the broad index, and telco Airtel Africa recorded its first depreciation since 11th November, setting it dangerously close to conceding its status of Nigeria’s largest company by market value to Dangote Cement.
NGX Group, GTCO and Custodian Investment aided the pullback. But a redeeming feature of Monday’s was an improvement in the size of trade, which lifted by 9 per cent compared with the previous session’s.
Analysts at Lagos-based investment bank United Capital see investors booking “profits on positions that have appreciated significantly in the past weeks” this week.
“With the big banks likely to release their FY-2021 numbers within the next two weeks, we expect investors to begin to take positions in names expected to deliver outperforming numbers while declaring strong dividend payments,” they added, referring to Nigeria’s five biggest banks by asset commonly called FUGAZ by reason of their initials.
Market breadth, which measures the extent of investors’ sentiment towards trade, was negative, with 24 retreating stocks were reported as against 23 losers.
The benchmark index was down by 135.53 basis points to 47,066.77 points, while market capitalisation slipped to N25.4 trillion at the end of trade.
The index has added 10.2 per cent since the turn of the year.
TOP FIVE GAINERS
NCR led gainers, growing by 10 per cent to close at N3.63. NCR gained 10 per cent to close at N1.65. Guinness rose by 10 per cent to N66.55. UPL leapt to N2.91, notching up 9.81 per cent in the process. Academy completed the top 5, climbing up by 9.56 per cent to N1.49.
TOP FIVE LOSERS
Japaul topped the losers’ table, declining by 7.69 per cent to close at N0.36. Courteville shrank by 7.27 per cent to end at N0.51. Vitafoam tumbled to N22.95, losing 6.13 per cent. Custodian Investment dipped to N7.45, recording 5.70 per cent loss. NGX Group closed at N25, going down by 5.66 per cent.
TOP FIVE TRADES
A total of 338 million shares worth N5.7 billion were traded in 5,619 deals.
Fidelity was the most preferred stock with 35.8 million of its shares worth N104.9 million traded in 173 deals. Access Bank had 33.9 million shares priced at N353.7 million exchanged hands in 296 transactions. Transcorp had 32.9 million shares valued at N38.5 million traded in 159 deals. Sterling traded 24.5 million shares estimated at N41.9 million in 325 transactions. GTCO traded 23.2 million shares valued at N613.4 million in 395 deals.
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