Rising political tension costs investors N105bn in 3 days

Rising political tension as the 2019 general elections approach is taking its tolls on the Nigerian stock market with investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange losing a whopping N105bn in just three days.

The market had appreciated in the first week of 2019, moving from red to green, but all that have been reversed.

NSE market capitalisation, representing investors worth on the Exchange closed at N11.614 billion from N11.719 billion it closed last Friday, pulling the Year to Date, YtD, performance back from green territory to red, at -0.9 percent.

According to capital market operators, the reversal in the future of the stock market is attributable to the worsened political tension involving the presidency and the judiciary arm of the government over the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghen.

Activity level at the market on Wednesday was mixed as volume traded declined 30.2 percent to 247.6million units while value traded advanced by 63.4 percent to close at N3.1bilionn.

Zenith Bank (56.4million units), Access Bank (36.2million units) and Sterling Bank (32.3million units) led the top trades by volume while Zenith Bank (N1.3billion), Nigerian Breweries (N844.0million) and Access Bank (N218.1million) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors was bullish as four of five indices closed in the green.

The Banking index appreciated the most gaining 2.4percent due to bargain hunting in Guaranty Trust Bank, (+0.6 percent) and Zenith Bank(+0.2 percent), trailed by the Oil & Gas index, up 1.4 percent on account of buy interests in Seplat Petroleum (+2.9 percent) and Oando Plc (+1.0 percent).

The Insurance and Industrial Goods indices inched higher, up 0.9 percent and 0.2 percent respectively following gains in Custodian & Allied (+1.5 percent ), Linkage Assurance (+8.9 percent) and Beta Glass (+7.8 percent ).

On the negative side, the Consumer Goods index shed 0.8 percent on the back of selloffs in Guinness (-8.5 percent) and Flour Mills (-2.1 percent).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth showed that 23 stocks advanced against 19 that declined.

Cornerstone (+10.0 percent ), Mutual Benefit (+10.0 percent) and ABC Transport (+9.7 percent) were the top performing stocks while Air Service (-9.8 percent ), LASACO Assurance (-9.4 percent ) and MC Nichols (-9.1 percent ) led the losers table.