Bearish sentiments continued on the floor of The Nigerian Stock Exchange, as the lead performance pointer-NSEASI gave up 22Bpts of its trading points and closed at 26,974.38 from 27,033.10. It was a mixed performance amongst the observed market indices as shown in the index movement table. Thus, Week to Date, the lead index is 151Bpts below opening while the total lost points in the month of February is now 648Bpts. See the index movement table for details.
Value loss by the Market Capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N30.587 billion, same as 22Bpts below the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 11 ADVANCERS and 16 LAGERS. NSEASI Year to Date gain is now 49Bpts while the Market Capitalization Year to Date gain stood at N1.094 trillion same as 844Bpts above the year’s opening value.
The gainers’ list was led by HonyFlour with 9.38% gain as it closed at N1.05 from N0.96. FCMB followed with 6.29% to close at N1.86 from N1.75. Completing the top five price percentage gainers are; EkoCorp (5.77%), UBA (4.38%) and Lasaco (4.17%).
Meanwhile, the decliners’ log was led by Vitafoam and Redstar Express with 9.98% loss each as both rounded up trade at N4.06 and N3.61 from N4.51 and N4.01 respectively. University Press followed on the log with 9.60% to close at N1.13 from N1.25. Completing the top 5 price percentage losers’ log are; CHI PLC (9.38%) and JaizBank (8.62%).
Bearish sentiments persisted on the floor of the exchange despite positive earnings released by listed equities such as African Prudential, UCAP, Zenith Bank and Dangote Cement. In our opinion, this is due to the long closure dates of most dividends announced so far, we are of the opinion that most investors will react towards their respective closure dates. Please note that, towards the close of business today, the management of Dangote Cement released its financial statistics for the year ended 31st December, 2019. In the result, it proposed a N16.00 final cash dividend; the closure date is 26th May, 2020, that is qualification date is 25th May while the payment date is 16th June, 2020.
As at the time this report was gathered, Brent Crude sells at 53.38$/bbl, this is 157Bpts below the previous close price.
The I&E FX Window opened at N365.13 traded as high as N366.25 before rounding up at N365.52, having transacted a total of $1,376.14 million through the day. Please note that, margin between the close and open value is 5Bpts up. We are of the opinion that the FX-Market will trade within same range tomorrow. See below table for Lagos BDC Fx-Rates.
In the money market, the Overnight (O/N) rate closed at 2.90%, same as 0.17% below the previous closing position. Meanwhile, Open Buy-Back (OBB) rate ended at 2.40% that is 0.11% above the previous close. We are of the opinion that the money market will maintain this range on the next business day. Safe Trade.
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