The bears dominated the bulls on the first trading session of the week as the equities market closed -1.53% lower. Sellers’ aggression continued from last week albeit weak quotes on the buy side which pulled the index down. Dangcem (-1.85%) led the losers notwithstanding the partial recovery from its sell down to limit low on tiny volumes intraday. Among the banks, Stanbic (-6.59%) and Guaranty (-2.86%) crumbled under selling pressure to lead decline in others – UBN (-7.14%), UBA (-3.23%), Zenith (-0.74%) and Access (–1.75%). On the flip side, gains in Oando (+1.01%) and FCMB (+1.08%) salvaged few paltry points on the day.
Market turnover rose to N5.3bn ($14.5m), buoyed by crosses in Guaranty ($4.2m) and Zenith ($1.1m) involving offshore interests. Ytd loss on the index widened to -7.22%. We expect the market to trade sideways next session.
