Nigeria Equity Watch | 10 Aug 2015 : Dangote Cement sustains positive momentum…NSE All share index marginally up by 1bp

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian equities market opened for the week on a positive note extending its positive performance from the previous week. The Benchmark index – All Share Index- appreciated 1bp to close at 31, 446.42 points as price appreciation in DANGCEM (+2.2%), GUARANTY (+0.6%) and MOBIL (+3.1%) propelled the bourse. Investors’ value increased by N1.6bn hence market capitalization settled at N10.8tn.  However, market activities waned considerably as volume and value traded declined 72.0% and 38.3% respectively, to settle at 146.7m units and N1.4bn respectively.

There was a mixed performance across sectors as the Industrial Index and the Insurance index advanced 101bps and 4bps respectively due to price appreciation in DANGCEM(+2.2%) and CONTINSU (+3.2%). On the flipside, the Banking Index and Consumer Goods index declined the most, losing 1.2% apiece due to losses in ZENITH (-4.1%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.6%). Similarly, the Oil &Gas index lost 0.5%.

Despite the positive performance, investment sentiment remained very weak as market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) settled at 0.6x following 15 stocks advancing against 27 declining stocks. The best performing stocks for the day were EVANSMED (+8.0%), ROADS (+4.9%) and DANGFLOUR (+4.0%) while REDSTAREX (-5.0%), NEIMETH (-4.9%) and ETERNA (-4.7%) were the worst performing stocks. Given cheap valuations of some key tickers in the market at the moment, we expect bargain hunting to persist, although at a lower rate. Nonetheless, we advise investors to trade cautiously while maintaining a medium to long term investment horizon.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team