Stakeholders in the Nigerian capital market say they expect the mixed trend which dominated the equities market last week to continue as more corporate earnings are released in the face of rising fixed income yields, oil prices and high dividend yields.
He stated that, “this is especially given the rising oil prices that have so far supported the economy and equity market, despite the seeming improvement in the fixed income yield which had remained at negative real rate of return due to the subsisting high inflation.” In the new week, analysts at Cowry Assets Management Limited expected the domestic equities market to remain weak as yields in the fixed income market trend upward, especially for 364-day bill which rose to seven per cent. Hence, we expect investors to use the opportunity to hunt for bargains given the lower re-entry prices.
At the close of last week, the stock market recorded losses on three of the five trading sessions as investors took profit in bellwether stocks. Consequently, the NSE All-Share Index fell by 0.69 per cent week-on-week to 38,382.39 points, while the year-to-date loss worsened to 4.69 per cent. Similarly, market capitalisation declined by N139 billion W-o-W to close at N20.082 trillion.
On the other side, Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals led the decliners table by 14.83 per cent to close at N1.78, per share. Africa Prudential followed with a loss of 10.08 per cent to close at N5.35 and NCR Nigeria declined by 9.71 per cent to close at N2.79, per share.