The equities market buckled by -31bps on the last trading day of the week and was largely influenced by the lacklustre performance among the banks and consumers. Market breadth was negative as investor apathy towards the banks was sustained. Guaranty (-0.98%) succumbed to selling pressure to lead the losers on the day alongside its contemporaries – Zenith (-0.25%) and ETI (-0.54%) though UBA (-0.81%) recovered from its intra-day slump. Nestle (-0.68%) declined on tiny volumes to pull back the consumer index whilst Total (-7.41%) and 11 Plc (2.86%) retreated in the oil & gas sector. Telecoms and index giant, MTNN (-0.33%) also retreated marginally to cap off an abysmal performance.
Market turnover fell to N3.9bn ($10.8m) buoyed by block trades in UBA ($1.4m) and Zenith ($1.3m) involving offshore interests whilst locals participated in MTNN ($1.24m) crosses. Ytd loss on the index widened to -3.18% whilst wtd return was unimpressive at -2.05%. We expect the market to trade sideways in the next week.
