Nigerian Stock Market Expected To Remain Subdued This Week

The Nigerian stock market is expected to remain cautious this week, with analysts predicting a mix of selective bargain hunting and persistent selling pressure.

The local bourse extended its bearish momentum into the third consecutive week, slipping below the 145,000 threshold. The downturn was driven chiefly by intensified profit-taking, a pattern that has become more pronounced as investors rebalance their portfolios ahead of year-end.

On outlook for the new week, Afrinvest Limited said, “Despite market expectations of a 25–50bps rate cut by the CBN’s Monetary Policy Committee at its final policy meeting of 2025 on Tuesday, we expect market sentiment to remain subdued this week, likely culminating in a negative performance swing.”

Imperial Asset Managers noted that, “we anticipate the cautious and defensive tone to persist in the near term. The index is likely to remain under pressure due to the sustained profit-taking in major financial names.

“However, the strong institutional activity (high volume/value) in financials suggests that the market is currently undergoing a major re-pricing phase, which may eventually lead to a rebound once the sell-off exhausts itself.”

Cowry Asset Management Limited added that “looking ahead, the equities market is likely to maintain a cautious tone next week as portfolio rebalancing and end-of-year profit-taking continue to influence trading behaviour.

“Activity may remain subdued in the absence of a clear market catalyst, while sectoral performance could stay mixed given the competitive pull of elevated fixed-income yields. Nonetheless, selective bargain-hunting in oversold counters may spark brief periods of recovery, keeping the NGX on a sideways-to-slightly-bearish trajectory in the near term. Nevertheless, we continue to advise investors to take positions in stocks with sound fundamentals.”

For last week, the benchmark NGX All-Share Index declined by 2.24 per cent week-on-week to close at 143,722.62 points. Similarly, the overall market capitalisation lost N2.09 trillion to close the week at N91.415 trillion.

Market sentiment remained broadly negative, as reflected in the market breadth, where 60 decliners heavily overshadowed 19 gainers. NCR Nigeria led the gainers table by 60.55 per cent to close at N41.10 per share. University Press followed with a gain of 17.65 per cent to close at N6.00, while Tantalizers rose by 17.29 per cent to close at N2.51 per share.

On the other hand, International Energy Insurance led the decliners’ table by 22.06 per cent to close at N2.12 per share. McNichols followed with a loss of 14.90 per cent to close at N2.57, while Veritas Kapital Assurance declined by 14.89 per cent to close at N1.60 per share.

Overall, a total of 2.668 billion shares worth N106.264 billion in 107,998 deals were traded by investors on the Exchange’s floor last week, in contrast to a total of 7.325 billion shares valued at N156.425 billion that exchanged hands the previous week in 134,383 deals.