Nigeria Equity Watch | 05 Aug 2015 : Nigerian equity market records its highest 4-month daily gains … NSE ASI climbs 3.1%

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Bourse was coloured by bullish sentiments across sectors with largely capitalized stocks such as DANGCEM (+4.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+5.0%) and ZENITH (+5.0%) gaining significantly. The NSE ASI improved 3.1% to 31,404.26pts at the close of trade moderating YTD performance to -9.4%. Contrarily, market activity waned as volume and value declined 49.7% and 36.2% to 336.2m units and N3.0bn respectively. Market capitalization also increased by N315.9bn to N10.8tn after 4,120 deals were made.

The Industrial sector appreciated the most by 3.2% today as DANGCEM climbed 4.9% and WAPCO gained 1.7%. This was followed by the Banking index (+2.9%) as bullish investors’ bet were placed on ZENITH (+5.0%), GUARANTY (+2.5%) and ETI (+3.8%). The Consumer Goods index was next, up 2.9%, as GUINNESS (+4.5%), FLOURMILL (+10.1%) and PZ (+3.5%) recorded price appreciations. The Oil & Gas and Insurance indices also rose 2.6% and 1.8% respectively.

Market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) was positive as it improved to 2.1x (from 1.5x the previous session) after 36 stocks advanced while 17 stocks declined at the close of trade. Top gainers were FLOURMILL (+10.1%), CUTIX (+9.3%) and NASCON (+9.3%) while the top losers were NNFM (-5.0%), BERGER (-4.9%) and PAINTCOM (-4.8%). Generally, market sentiments appear to have picked up despite noticeable bearish runs on some counters. We perceive that the current uptrend may be sustained till the end of the week as the market awaits more H1:2015 earnings results.  Nevertheless, we advise investors to remain cautious whilst balancing their optimism by trading in stocks with sound fundamentals and attractive valuations.
Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team