Market sentiments tilted in favour of the bears, as the NGXASI depreciated by 44bps, to mark the third consecutive drop this week. This has moderated the year-to-date performance down to +1.93%. Today’s performance was underpinned by weakness in Transcorp(-7.84%), UBA(-3.10%), Accesscorp(-3.45%), GTCO(-0.83%), FCMB(-6.15%), First HoldCo(-2.33%), Zenithbank(-0.52%), Wapic(-9.27%) and MRSOIL(-8.99%). On the other hand, NB(+1.56%) rose possibly on the back of a report of an acquisition of 20% stake in Distell Nigeria. Other notable gainers include Julius Berger(+8.47%), Fidelity(+1.19%), and Unilever(+2.12%).
Market turnover today was N12.3billion ($8 million) boosted by trades in Zenithbank, Sovereign Trust, MTNN, Fidelity and GTCO. We anticipate the market will trail along its recent pattern, not barring one-off block trades.