Research analysts have predicted that the buying interest which surfaced last week will persist, even as negative sentiment in telecom giant – Airtel Africa – resulted in N14 billion losses to investors.
But the analysts projected that investors would be guided by the outcome of the meeting of the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holding today and tomorrow.
Despite the buying pressure that saw the market rise in four of the five trading days, profit booking in Airtel Africa Plc (-6.0%) pulled the equities index marginally down by 0.1 per cent.
Specifically, the benchmark All Share Index (ASI) declined to 52,187.17 points from 52,214.62 points, representing a 0.1 per cent decrease. Similarly, the market capitalisation of all listed equities fell by the same margin to N28.417 trillion from N28.431 trillion in the preceding week.
Analysis of the sectoral performance is bullish despite the lacklustre performance of the All Share Index.
With the exception of the oil & gas sector which emerged as the worst-performing sector with a 1.67% loss due to dividend markdown and price adjustments in Seplat Energy, other sectors advanced.
The insurance sector emerged the top gainer with 5.20% appreciation as investors renewed buying interests in the sector, while the banking and the consumer goods sectors rose by 2.88 per cent and 1.86 per cent respectively.
However, the industrial goods sector closed flat.
Meanwhile activity level was bearish as the level of trading activities declined. The traded volume plunged into negative territory by 15.90 per cent to 3.03 billion units, while the traded value declined by 42.49 per cent to N17.54 billion.
In their projection for the new week, analysts at Cowry Asset Management said: “Going into the new week, we anticipate the current trend of buying interests in value stocks and profit taking to continue as dividends payments by companies support the liquidity levels in the market as core investors continue their portfolio rebalancing ahead of markdown dates, MPC meeting and Q1 GDP report expectations.”
“Looking ahead, we believe investors will focus on the outcome of the MPC meeting schedule to gain further clarity on the movement of yields in the fixed-income market.
“As a result, we expect cautious trading from domestic investors in the short term.
