Many investors at the Lagos Bourse are still afraid to buy more stocks, even as Nigeria’s mucky political climate causes equities prices to downtrend.
While market watchers expected the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to sustain early week’s (Monday) gain, it rather extended loss line on Wednesday as evident in the position of the Bourse’s benchmark index.
Amid this scenario, analysts still expect investors to take advantage of existing attractive entry prices in fundamentally sound stocks despite that most stocks in their watch-list for the month of June have fallen off price targets.
As increased sell-off on Customs Street pushed equities value down on Wednesday, the market’s year-to-date (ytd) returns furthered negative and closed at -0.73percent.
Many asset managers are repositioning their portfolios ahead of the expected second-quarter (Q2)/first half (H1) 2018 results from listed companies.
At the close of trading on Wednesday June 27, 2018 only 12 equities gained as against 35 losers.
The NSE All Share Index (ASI) depreciated by -0.06percent to close at 37,963.93 points as against 37,988.54 points recorded the preceding trading day.
The value of listed equities which stood at N13.752trillion represented a loss of N9billion from preceding trading day’s level of N13.761trillion.
Okomu Oil Palm Plc recorded the highest loss on Wednesday as its share depleted by N1.7 or 1.80percent, from N94.2 to N92.5. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc followed after a record N1.2 or 4.86percent decline, from N24.7 to N23.5.
Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc lost N1 or 0.15percent, from N651 to N650; Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc joined the top losers league after a record N1 or 0.55percent dip, from N182 to N181; while Zenith Bank Plc declined by 50kobo or 1.96percent, from N25.5 to N25.
In 3,800 deals, stock traders exchanged 372,239,859 units valued at N3.179billion against 539,665,335 units exchanged valued at N4.711billion exchanged Tuesday in 4,202 deals. Sterling Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, Transcorp Plc, United Capital and UBA Plc were actively traded stocks.
Total Nigeria Plc recorded biggest gain of N7.2 or 3.72percent, from N193.3 to N200.5. Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc followed with N1 or 2.04percent gain, from N49 to N50. Lafarge Africa Plc advanced from N39.05 to N40, up by 95kobo or 2.43percent; Union Bank of Nigeria Plc rose from N5.9 to N6.15, up by 25kobo or 4.24percent; while Africa Prudential Plc gained 15kobo or 3.90percent, from N3.85 to N4.
