Weekly Stock News (Aug 26,2011)

Trading activities on the NSE bourse closed downbeat in all trading days of the week as market sentiments remained weak while market lack positive news to drive sustainable up trend.

The bears remained in control of the market and reign throughout the week as continued investors’ apathy and ‘wait and watch’ attitude of investors’ contributed to the outlook recorded in the week

In essence, the market opened the week on a negative note as sell-off continued to depress market while the bears increased the tempo on Tuesday to further increase market losses.

More so, the negative posture was sustained on Wednesday though waning selling momentum was observed while market transactions on Thursday closed downbeat with an intense loss as NSE ASI dropped further. The bearish trend continued on Friday with ASI closing below 22,000 psychological to end the week on a negative note with -3.29% aggregate loss recorded.

In the same light, the key benchmark indices moved down by -0.78% to open the week on a negative note as selling sentiments outweighed buying activities. The second session recorded negative outlook as ASI dipped further by -1.04% while the same outlook was recorded on Wednesday with -0.02%, though waning selling was observed.

The bears intensified the tempo on Thursday despite waning selling tendency observed previously with ASI recording -1.11% loss.Consequently, the bears sustained the downwards trend on Friday with -0.38% loss recorded while All Share Index closed with -3.29% aggregate loss for the week.

Nevertheless, want to resound that investors should have long term approach as the market outlook remained bearish in both short and long term.

The active transactions witnessed across the board particularly towards blue chips and other sectors like Banking, Insurance, IC, Building Materials, Healthcare Conglomerates, Petroleum Marketing, Food and Beverages, Maritime and Breweries sectors impacted the market outlook in the week.

The Shares prices of Afribank Plc, Spring Bank Plc and Bank PHB Plc remained stagnant as a result of the Full Suspension placed on them following the nationalization while Intercontinental Bank Plc, FinBank Plc, Oceanic Bank Plc and Union Bank Plc also experienced no price movement due to the Technical Suspension following the signing of their Transaction Implementation Agreement.In addition, analysis revealed that -5.00% loss was recorded by Wema Bank Plc while Unity Bank Plc also recorded -6.56% loss in the week as normal trading activities continued on them. See the performance chart below

In the week, the share price of the following company was marked down.

1. GTBank Plc was marked down for an interim dividend of N0.25k. The payment date is 9th Sept, 2011.

However, the All-Share Index in the week under review dips by -3.29% to close at 21,976.87 as against a decline by -0.23% recorded last week to close at22,724.02.

In the same vein, the market capitalization in the week depreciated by N238.99 billion (US$1.61 billion) to close at N7.02 trillion (US$47.64billion) as against depreciation of N16.48 billion (US$111.72million) recorded last week to close at N7.26 trillion (US$ 49.26billion).

The total volume traded in the week closed at 1.45 billion units valued at N9.02 billion (US$60.15 million) compared with 1.75 billion units valued at N12.96billion (US$86.40 million) exchanged in 22,744 deals last week. The volume transaction in the week when compared with the previous week data moved down by -16.96% as against an upwards movement by +3.17% recorded last week. Weekly value also went down by 30.38% as against positive position of 6.89% recorded last week.

The volume traded in the top ten most traded stocks for the week represented 73.69% of the entire market volume transactions and their total value accounted for 52.62% of the market value.

Banking sector emerged the most traded sector in the week in terms of volume. The volume traded in the sector this week alone closed at 962.68 million units, valued at 4.95billion and exchanged in 11,930 deals compared with 1.04 billion units, valued at N6.96billion and exchanged in 12,843 deals in the preceding week. The volume traded in the sector accounted for 66.05% of the entire market compared with 59.61% of the ratio recorded last week.

The lead volume traded in the banking sector is evident in the table above with eight of the top ten trades being banking stocks. Fin Bank Plc led the market volume for the week to displace Access Bank Plc as top traded stock on the transaction volume chart last week.

The sector’s volume transaction was mainly boosted by trading in the shares of the banks in the top-ten category.

Insurance sector followed with 249.92 million units valued at N145.89 million exchanged in 685 deals compared with 247.42 million units valued at N238.07 million recorded in the sector last week.

Index Movements

NSE All-Share Index opened the week on a negative note with -0.78% loss, bearish sentiments dominated the week as ASI closed negative on Friday by -0.38% loss with negative market breadth.

In the week under review, all the five NSE- sectoral Indices closed negative as NSE Banking recorded the highest loss by -3.42% while NSE Oil & Gas closed with lowest loss with -1.05%.

Top Gainers of the week

The number of gainers in the week closed at nineteen (19) compared with thirty-two (32)appreciations recorded last week. NCR Nigeria Plc topped the gainers chart for the week with+9.78% appreciations

Top Losers of the week

Forty-three (43) stocks recorded price decline of different magnitude in the week under review compared with thirty-one (31) stocks that declined in the previous week. PZ Plc topped the losers chart for the week with -22.50% depreciation