Stocks shed N285.96b on lingering profit-taking

Why banks’ shares are falling, by experts
Yesterday, domestic equities suffered another significant decline due to profit taking.

With this, the gains recorded earlier in the week ha ve been wiped out. In the view of the analysts, , the continuous nosedive in equity prices stoked wider fears about the domestic market outlook, which has come to the fore since the beginning of the year even as investors reduce their respective holdings and the market being largely driven by speculative trading.

Hence, equities market closed yesterday on a negative note, as NSE ASI depreciated by 1.61 per cent to close at 29,393.77basis points, compared with the 1.17 per cent depreciation recorded previously. Its Year-to-Date (YTD) returns currently stands at 15.19 per cent.

Market breadth closed negative as Vono led 24 gainers against 23 losers topped by Access at the end of yesterday’s session- an improved performance when compared with previous outlook.
Market turnover closes negative as volume declined by 37.75 per cent against 53.14 per cent decline recorded in the previous session. UBA, Zenith Bank and Access were the most active to boost market turnover. Wapco and Zenith Bank topped market value list.

Volume shockers included Wapic which led the list of active stocks that recorded impressive volume spike at the end of yesterday’s session.

Meanwhile, experts have taken a look at the banking sector’s falling shares with Charles Fakrogha of Foresightsecurities explaining that the fall only reflect the macro-economic conditions in which the banks are operating.

‘’This will affect the confidence of the investors as to the quality of management and performance. For the economy, we will see more sell off and performance will be affected’’, he said.
However, he added, FBNH , Zenith and Guaranty moving up.

The President of Constance Shareholders Association, Shehu Mikail said the banks are getting out of operational system due to series of policy approach to the financial industry in Nigeria by both the government and the policy makers which are likely to turn the management of banks to puppets in financial industry.

According to him, all bodies or association of bankers need to look inwardly to the system of operation on how to create more avenues in monetary transactions, whereby the shareholders of the bank would be able to have more confidence in the industry in Nigeria due to the fact that the Federal government has declared that the public sector’s financial transactions should be paid directly to single account but lamented that it would affect our financial industry.

His words: ‘’Now with this new directive by government it is already affecting our banks as all the shares of the banks are going south and this is likely to dash the hopes of most shareholders.