Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
In a bid to trim their exposure to the equity market and possibly diversify into other asset classes, investors on Thursday rebalanced their portfolios and sold off some of their holdings in Conoil, BUA Foods, GTCO, Oando, Airtel Africa, Zenith Bank and 16 others.
The hiking of the benchmark interest rate to 13.0 per cent by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently and the disclosure on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that inflation in May rose by 17.71 per cent have given investors an opportunity to review their investment strategy.
The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited is on the hot seat for this and has struggled to replicate the positive momentum it recorded some weeks ago, especially at a time the main focus is now on political activities in the country ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Yesterday, the exchange further depreciated by 0.69 per cent for the third trading session on the back of sustained profit-taking. It has only managed a single upward movement in the last six trading days and four in the last 13 sessions.
The All Share Index (ASI), which measures the overall performance of the market, depreciated by 364.31 points to settle at 52,411.09 points compared with the previous day’s 52,775.40 points, while the market capitalisation decreased by N197 billion to close at N28.255 trillion versus Wednesday’s N28.452 trillion.
Business Post reports that the consumer goods counter closed higher by 0.01 per cent during the session, while the energy, banking, insurance and industrial goods sectors finished lower by 0.83 per cent, 0.62 per cent, 0.28 per cent and 0.01 per cent respectively.
A total of 211.6 million shares worth N2.4 billion exchanged hands in 4,750 deals on Thursday as against the 188.1 million shares worth N2.4 billion traded in 4,890 deals at the midweek session. This indicated that while the number of deals reduced by 2.86 per cent, the volume of trades increased by 12.51 per cent and the value of transactions remained unchanged.
Sterling Bank sold 63.7 million stocks valued at N97.5 million, Zenith Bank transacted 17.3 million shares worth N382.6 million, UBA traded 17.3 million equities for N131.9 million, Transcorp exchanged 16.2 million shares for N21.0 million, while FBN Holdings sold 10.3 million equities worth N101.0 million.
On the price movement index, Conoil was the worst-performing stock as it dropped 10.00 per cent to settle at N28.80, BUA Foods declined by 9.97 per cent to N53.75, eTranzact depleted by 9.96 per cent to N2.44, CWG fell by 9.62 per cent to 94 kobo, while Eterna went down by 6.25 per cent to N7.50.
On the flip side, Linkage Assurance finished the day as the best performer as it gained 9.80 per cent to quote at 56 kobo, Courteville rose by 8.00 per cent to 54 kobo, Japaul appreciated by 6.90 per cent to 31 kobo, Chams chalked up 4.17 per cent to sell at 25 kobo, while UPDC grew by 4.08 per cent to N1.02.
