Nigeria Equity Watch | 10 July 2015 : Nigerian Bourse capped off a week of poor performance by extending its bearish run

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Bourse capped off a week of poor performance by extending its bearish run to the last trading day of the week. The All Share Index fell 0.1% to close at 31,729 points. The market was dragged by losses in UNILEVER (-5.0%), FORTE OIL (-2.8%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.7%). A total of N8.8bn was lost by investors as market capitalization declined to N10.8tn. However, market activity was mixed as volume traded improved 113.9% closing at 475.0m units while value traded declined 7.2% to berth at N3.9bn.

Performance across the various sectors of the market was mixed as the Industrial Goods Index led sector gainers, appreciating 0.4% against the backdrop of gains in WAPCO (+0.9%) and CCNN (+0.9%). Similarly, the Banking Index and Insurance Index rebounded from their previous negative close and added 14bps and 4bps respectively. On the flipside, the Oil & Gas Index and the Consumer Index lost 0.6% a piece on the back of losses in FORTE OIL (-2.8%) for the former and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.7%) for the latter.

Investor sentiments however showed some signs of improvement, but was still negative with a market breadth (advancers/ decliners ratio) of 0.9x as 17 stocks advanced while 20 declined. The best performing stocks for the day were CONTINSURE (+7.8%), NAHCO (+5.0%) and TOTAL (+4.6%) while UNILEVER (-5.0%), HONYFLOUR (-5.0%) and VONO (-4.6%) declined the most. Following the poor performance of the market, some attractive stocks trading at lower prices pose a good opportunity for investors with a medium to long term horizon even as more H1:2015 results are expected to trickle in.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team