Nigerian equity market down 0.17% as MPC meets

The Nigerian equity market halted last week’s uptrend on Monday as the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holds its first meeting for the year on January 24-25.

Sell-offs in WAPCO, ZENITH and GUARANTY local bourse down  0.17% to 38,571.89 points and the market capitalisation lost ₦33.6bn to settle at ₦20.2tn, while year-to-date loss worsened to -4.2%.

The volume of stocks traded rose 14.9% to 391.4m units while value traded declined 21.9% to ₦1.8bn.

The most traded stocks by volume were FIDELITY (46.1m units), ACCESS (36.9m units), and MBENEFIT (27.7m units) while GUARANTY (₦352.4m), ACCESS (₦297.7m), and FBNH (₦197.7m) led by value.

The Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices gained 0.1% apiece due to price appreciation in ARDOVA (+1.1%), GUINNESS (+10.0%) and DANGSUGAR (+1.8%).

Conversely, the Insurance index led losers with a 2.8% decline on the back of profit-taking in MANSARD (-7.4%) and WAPIC (-4.4%).

The Banking and Industrial goods indices also declined by 0.97% and 0.18% respectively due to price declines in ZENITH (-0.9%), GUARANTY (-0.2%) and WAPCO (-3.1%). However, the AFR-ICT index closed flat.

GUINNESS (+10.0%), MORISON (+9.3%) and FTNCOCOA (+9.3%) were the top gainers while UAC-PROP (-10.0%), PZ (-9.8%), and STUDPRESS (-3.5%) were the top decliners.

Analysts projected that the newly released inflation number of 18.2% would likely weigh on market sentiment on Tuesday, as investors seek positive real returns.