Nigeria Equity Watch | 07 Aug 2015 : Nigerian Equities market halts gains today after four consecutive days of gains …

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Equities market halted gains today following four consecutive days of gains as the Benchmark Index (ASI) eased 17bps to close at 31,441.71 points. The market performance was primarily influenced by price depreciation in banking counters such as STANBIC (-4.1%), GUARANTY (-2.4%) and ZENITH (-1.7%). Thus, investors lost a total of N18.5bn today as market capitalization settled at N10.8tn. Activity level within the market also declined as volume and value traded dropped 1.4% and 56.3% to 524.6m units and N2.3bn respectively.

Sector Performance was mixed as the Banking and Consumer Goods indices depreciated 1.2% and 0.3% respectively due to losses in GUARANTY (-2.4%), ZENITH (-1.7%) and GUINNESS (-4.4%). On the flipside, the Oil & Gas index led sector gainers (+2.0%) on the back of price appreciation in FORTE (+4.0%) and OANDO (+2.5%). Similarly, the Insurance and Industrial goods indices grew 0.3% and 0.1% respectively.

Investor sentiments as measured by market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) berthed at 1.3x as 24 stocks advanced against 18 declining stocks. The gainers’ chart was topped by EVANSMED (+8.7%), BERGER (+4.9%) and MAYBAKER (+4.9%), while FLOURMILL (-6.0%), CADBURY (-5.0%) and NNFM (-4.9%) led the losers’ list. Given the recent trend in the market, we advise investors to trade conscientiously while maintaining a medium to long term horizon.