Stock market in wait-and-see over direction of new CBN team

The bearish mood on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX, has heightened as selloffs and profit booking continued to defy the quarter-end expectations.

This is at the backdrop of a wait-and-see sentiment of investors towards the new leadership at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, ahead of the third quarter 2023, Q3’23, earnings reporting season.

Meanwhile, investors have gained N8.416 trillion return on Year-to-Date YtD (9 months) as market capitalisation closed on Friday at N36.331 trillion against N27.915 trillion at the close of trading in 2022.

However, on Week-on-Week, WoW, investors lost over N516 billion, but Month-to-Date, MtD, loss dropped by over N91 billion.

The Quarter-on-Quarter, QoQ, details showed that investors gained N3.134 trillion in Q3’23.

Similarly, another major stock market indicator, NGX All Share Index, ASI, WoW, dropped by 1.4% to close at 66.382.03 points as against N67,324.59 points the previous week.

On MtD, ASI dropped by 0.3%; YtD it gained 29.5% and Q3’23 it garnered 8.9%.

Meanwhile, analysis of last week trading showed that it was a brutal week for equity investors as the Nigerian stock market recorded losses in all four trading sessions of the week.

Trading activity remained sluggish, with a 65.7% w/w decline in total trading volume and a 40.8% w/w drop in trading value. Sectoral performance was mixed, with gains in the Insurance Index (+2.8%) and Consumer Goods Index (+1.6%) while the Banking Index dropped by 4.2%, Industrial Goods Index 3.0% and Oil and Gas Index 1.2%.

Reacting to market development, analysts at Invesdata,said:”We expect mixed sentiment on bargain hunting and portfolio repositioning ahead of Q4 in the face of sector rotation. As all eyes are on monetary policy drive of the New CBN Governor and his team.

However, pullbacks are creating ‘buy’ opportunities amidst the economic reforms of the government, just as more policy pronouncements and economic managers hit the ground running, a situation expected to offer investment direction eventually.”

Also reacting analysts at Cordros Research said:”In the short term, we anticipate cautious trading in the local stock market due to the absence of significant positive catalysts to boost sentiments. Overall, we advise investors to take positions in only fundamentally justified stocks as the unimpressive macro story remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings.”