Trading activity in the Nigerian equities market closed on a negative note as sell pressure intensified due to the announcement of first incident of Coronavirus case in Lagos. Investors took to flight to cash, and consequently sank the NSEASI by 2.21%, dragging the year to date performance further into the negative region to -2.33%. Today’s weak performance on the broad index was largely due to sell off in the banking space; notable laggards were ETI (-10.00%), Stanbic (-9.97%), Guaranty (-9.85%), FBNH (-7.84%), UBN (-7.14%), Access (-6.29%), UBA (-4.29%), and Zenithbank (-2.63%). Other notable losers includes MTNN (-1.87%), NB (-10.00%), Cadbury (-10.00%), PZ (-10.00%) and Presco (-9.93%) among others.
Market turnover improved to N6.19bn ($16mln), boosted by offshore interest in Stanbic ($1.00 mln) and mixed interest in Guaranty, Zenithbank and Nestle. We expect the market to maintain this trading pattern in the next session.
