Nigerian equity market down by 1.5% in election week

The Nigerian equity market dipped by 1.5 per cent this week as Nigerians head to the polls to elect governorship and state Assembly members, reversing last week’s gains (+0.5%). 

The All-share index, consequently, declined to 54,915.39 points and year-to-date return fell to 7.2%, while ₦478.9bn was shaved off-market capitalisation w/w to ₦29.9tn.

Activity level dampened as average volume and value traded dipped 16.6% and 41.4% w/w to 170.7m units and ₦2.4bn respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were TRANSCORP (74.2m units), STERLNBANK (68.3m units), and ZENITH (64.6m units) while ZENITH (₦1.6bn), NGXGROUP (₦1.4bn), and GTCO (₦1.3bn) led trade by value.

The Banking and Insurance indices led the laggards, down 4.6% and 2.4% w/w respectively on account of selloffs in ZENITH (-4.7%), ETI (-10.0%), AIICO (-6.6%), and MANSARD (-4.8%).

Following, the AFR-ICT and Industrial Goods indices dipped 2.3% and 0.3% w/w respectively, driven by price decline in MTNN (-5.0%), WAPCO (-4.9%), and CUTIX (-1.4%).

Conversely, the Consumer Goods index was the sole gainer, appreciating 1.4% w/w following a price uptick on BUAFOODS (+4.2%), UNILEVER (+3.7%) and CHAMPION (+2.2%).

Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, weakened to -0.3x from -0.2x recorded in the previous week as 19 stocks gained, 46 lost, while 87 were unchanged.

The top-performing stocks for the week were PRESTIGE (+9.8%), ENAMELWA (+9.6%), and UPL (+9.3%) while UCAP (-16.7%), LINKASSURE (-10.9%), and ETI (-10.0%) were the top underperforming stocks.