Major sell-offs in market heavyweights like Dangote Cement Plc, Aradel Holdings Plc, and HBM Nigeria Plc dragged the Nigerian equities market into bearish territory for the week ended Friday, November 6.
Equity investors lost N3.52 trillion as total market capitalisation dropped to N161.6 trillion.
Similarly, the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) declined by 2.13 percent week-on-week (WoW) to settle at 248,877.22 points, trimming year-to-date (YtD) gains down to 59.93 percent.
Market watchers saw how the pronounced weekly downturn was triggered by sustained profit-taking in high-capitalisation stocks following recent rallies.
Analysts noted that risk-off sentiment dominated as institutional investors locked in gains across key sectors, particularly in industrial goods and financial counters, which weighed down overall market trajectory despite intermittent bargain hunting in select equities.
The record weekly slump was primarily driven by sharp drops in key heavyweight counters: HBM Nigeria (-10 percent WoW),
Aradel Holdings (- 9.99 percent WoW), and
Dangote Cement (- 5.56 percent WoW).
The bearish momentum carried into last Friday’s session as the NGX-ASI slipped another 0.33 percent.
Downward pressure from MTNN (-1.53 percent), HBM Nigeria (-2.48 percent), and Zenith Bank (-2.17 percent) outweighed gains in ETI (+4.48 percent) and Honeywell Flour Mills (+9.87 percent).
Despite the drop in the main index, daily market breadth closed positive on Friday at 1.26x (29 gainers versus 23 losers). Champion Breweries and Coronation Insurance led the daily gainers with a 10 percent jump each, while PZ Cussons hit the floor with a 9.94 percent decline.
Overall trading activity weakened on Friday. For instance, volume traded dropped by 3.36 percent to 369.92 million units; while value traded dropped by 11.88 percent to N26 billion. GTCO led both volume (41 million units / 11.09 percent) and value (N5 billion / 18.90 percent).
Sectoral performance was mixed. The gainers are: Insurance (+3.34 percent) and Oil and Gas (+0.12 percent), boosted by AXA Mansard (+9.26 percent) and Oando (+5.08 percent). The decliners are: Banking (-0.77 percent), Industrial Goods (-0.33 percent), and Consumer Goods (-0.09 percent). Commodity Index was unchanged.
Money and fixed income markets…
The secondary market for FGN bonds turned slightly bearish, with buying interest focused on the short end (-3 bps). Average yield contracted by 1 bp to 16.34 percent. Average Nigerian Treasury Bills (NTB) yields remained flat at 17.88 percent.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) carried out
OMO auction, offering N1.5 trillion across 179-day, 270-day, and 361-day papers.
Total subscriptions reached N5.7 trillion, though the apex bank allotted N2.7 trillion at stop rates of 17.25 percent, 16.54 percent, and 15.74 percent, respectively.
For the interbank money market, the Open Repo (OPR) rate held unchanged at 20 percent, while the Overnight (O/N) rate expanded by 2 basis points (bps) to 20.20 percent.