For the ninth consecutive trading days, equities trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange ended in the negative territory, as the lead performance pointer, NSEASI gave up 49Bpts of its trading points and closed at 38,044.58 from 38,233.68. Safe NSE-Consumer Goods Index that gained, other observed market indices in this report closed in the red. Thus, WtD, the lead index is 73Bpts below the opening point, while the total lost points in the month of May is now 449Bpts. See the index movement table for details.

Market speculations heightened as traders already received every key economic news. For example, the National Bureau of Statistics already announced both the Headline Inflation number for the month of April, and the GDP details for the first quarter of the year. In both we saw a marginal improvements. Nevertheless, many had argued that, the Inflation figure is a sharp deviation from the trend of food prices around the country, while the 0.51% GDP growth stood far below various expectations and projections. Also, the first quarter earnings of equities with December financial year had been seen, although we still expect numbers from few listed equities with other financial year end. It is on this strength that we said, traders will now play more by speculations and individual equity’s trend. Another investment strategy is considering equities with half year incentives, and picking stocks after careful analysis and projections of the already released first quarter numbers.

The total value loss by the Market Capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N98.566 billion, same as 49Bpts below the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 16 ADVANCERS and 21 LAGERS. NSEASI Year to Date loss is now 553Bpts while the Market Capitalization Year to Date loss stood at N1.227 trillion same as 583Bpts below the year’s opening value.

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