•Investors lose N539bn 

By Peter Egwuatu 

The bearish sentiment last week persisted on the Nigerian Exchange, NGX, amid selloffs in highly priced stocks and blue chip companies which weighed heavily on the stock market.

Consequently, investors lost over N539 billion of the value of their investment as market capitalisation, which represents the total worth of investment listed on the Exchange plunged to close at N56.039 last Friday down from N56.577 trillion the previous week.

Another major stock market gauge, NGX All Share Index, ASI dropped by 0.95% to close at 97,520.54 points from 98458.56 points.

Trading last week was predominantly driven by selloffs in blue chip companies like Dangote Cement, which lost 10.00%  Week-on-Week, WoW, and BUA Cement 3.42% WoW among other companies.

The bearish run came at the backdrop of investors’ move to fixed income securities following the hike in Monetary Policy Rate, MPR, by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, recently, even as the Purchasing Managers’ Index, PMI for the month of September slipped to 49.2 points from 49.8 points in August, indicating a contraction in business activities for the period.

This should be expected following the continued rates hike by the monetary authority at the detriment of economy expansion apparently in pursuit of foreign investment inflow.

Meanwhile, more companies notified the Exchange of their closed periods and board meeting dates to approve their scorecards in October. 

Commenting on market outlook, analysts at InvestData Consulting Limited, said: “We expect mixed sentiment to continue on profit taking and portfolio rebalancing ahead of Q3 earnings reporting session. Also, sector rotation continues in the market, with investors taking advantage of pullbacks to buy into value stocks.

This is amid the volatility and pullbacks that add more strength to upside potential.

‘‘Consequently, investors should take advantage of price correction, while also looking at the trends and events across the globe and domestically.”