Stocks Refuse To Respond To Exit From Recession As Market Closes In The Red

Despite Nigeria exiting recession on Tuesday, the equities market closed in the red, shedding N35bn.

On the release of the second quarter Gross Domestic Product data, the market opened this week’s trading with a loss as Seplat Petroleum Production Company Plc, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, Lafarge Africa Plc, Cadbury Nigeria Plc and Total Nigeria Plc emerged as the top five losers.



The Nigerian Stock Exchange market capitalisation, on Tuesday, dropped to N12.202tn from N12.237tn as the NSE All-Share Index closed at 35,403.92 basis points from 35,504.62 basis points.

The National Bureau of Statistics released its Q2 2017 Gross Domestic Product report on Tuesday, which showed the economy grew by 0.55 per cent year-on-year, “much in line with our expectation of a 0.6 per cent expansion. The growth was largely driven by improvement in the oil sector and non-oil sector which grew by 1.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent year-on-year, respectively in Q2 2017,” analysts at Afrinvest said in a report.

A total of 230.029 million shares valued at N4.774bn were traded in 4,188 deals.

Seplat’s share price declined by five per cent (N24.52) to close at N465.98 from N490.50. The shares of Julius Berger also dropped to N30.87 from N32.49, shedding 4.99 per cent (N1.62).

Similarly, Lafarge shares plunged by 4.98 per cent (N2.84) to close at N54.14 from N56.98. The share price of Cadbury, in the same vein, dropped by 4.97 per cent (N0.57) to close at N10.90 from N11.47. Total’s shares depreciated by 4.90 per cent (N12) to close at N233 from N245.

Meanwhile, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated Plc, the Lome-based parent company of the Ecobank Group, on Tuesday, signed a five-year senior unsecured loan facility of $250m from Deutsche Bank AG.

The Public Investment Company of South Africa, one of the major institutional shareholders of ETI, is providing full credit support to Deutsche Bank in this transaction via a sub–participation of risk, report says.