21st April, 2020

Sequel to the continuous dominance by the Bulls in the last few sessions, which resulted to most fundamentally sound stocks recording capital appreciation, the domestic bourse witnessed a trend reversal as the ASI  tanked 127bps in today's session to close the day lower at 22,629.92 points. The downward performance is highly related to the depreciation we are seeing in the global price of crude as well as profit taking by investors on some of the gains made in recent sessions. Still on the downward slope, market activity likewise slowed in today's session as total volume and value traded diminished by 27.70% and 44.76% respectively, with trades in ZENITHBANK, GUARANTY and FBNH dominating market turnover. Similarly, market breadth once again closed negative (0.15x) as market decliners (27) outnumbered the gainers (4).

What will shape the market tomorrow? 

With the absence of positive movement in large cap stocks, the Nigerian equities market closed lower as the Bears took over today. However, we expect no deviation from this trading pattern tomorrow, as we believe the challenge with the global crude price will persist creating more uncertainties in the market while we also do not foresee any positive catalysts that is capable of lifting sentiment.  

Reporting for EasyKobo on Tuesday , 21 April 2020 in Lagos, Nigeria

Source: Vetiva Capital Management Limited