Nigeria Stock Market Sees First Red This Week

The domestic equities market ended on a sour note for the first time this week, with the NGX-ASI falling 52 basis points to settle at 44,625.18 points. As a result, the market’s year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 4.8% from 5.0% the previous trading day.

REGALINS (+8.7%), SOVRENINS (+8.0%), and JAPAULGOLD (+7.4%) were the market’s top gainers. However, the top losers today were PHARMDEKO (-9.8%), LINKASSURE (-9.3%), and WAPIC (-8.3%).

Total volume traded increased by 61.4%, but value exchanged decreased by 54.1%, to 61.4 million units and 1.6 billion, respectively. With 47.8 million units, 22.6 million units, and 8.9 million units, respectively, MBENEFIT, PHARMDEKO, and TRANSCORP lead the volume chart. AIRTELAFRI, MTNN, and ZENITH BANK, on the other hand, lead the value chart with 573.5mn, 340.7mn, and 122.2mn, respectively.

The performance of indices under our purview was more bullish, with two indices rising and one falling. Meanwhile, the Industrial Goods and Oil and Gas indexes finished marginally down.

According to performance, the Banking index led gainers with 110bps, followed by the Consumer Goods index, which gained 1bps. The increases are attributed to buyer interest in ZENITH BANK (+2.6%) and NB (+0.1%), respectively. The Insurance index, on the other hand, was the single loser, falling by 98 basis points. The drop in LINKASSURE (-9.3%) was mostly responsible for the loss.

REGENCY ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC, today’s top gainer, finished with 1.8 million units traded and $9.4 million in value moved.

According to the most recent annual audited report, the firm produced an average of 5.8 billion in gross premiums written from 2017 to 2021. The overall premium written climbed by 17.2%, rising from 5.5 billion in 2017 to 6.5 billion in 2020.

However, according to our estimate, the total premium written fell by 21.8% to 5.1 billion at the conclusion of its fiscal year 2021. Furthermore, our study reveals that Regency Alliance Insurance has maintained a decent debt ratio during the last five years. In 2017, the debt ratio was 0.3, and it will be 0.4 from 2018 to 2021.

On daily currency updates, I&E and the parallel market’s prices closed at ₦441.67/US$1.00 and ₦778/US$1.00 respectively. The current P2P Forex market price is ₦771.00/US$1.00. Nigeria’s external reserves is currently US$37.52bn.