Nigeria Equity Watch | 12 Aug 2015: Sell Pressure Persists…NSE ASI down 52bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Equities market suffered a second consecutive day of losses as the Benchmark Index- All Share Index- declined 0.5% closing the day at 31,107.11 points. Today’s performance was on the back of price depreciations in GUARANTY (-3.0%), STANBIC (-5.0%) and GUINNESS (-3.1%). A total amount of N55.7bn was subsequently lost by investors as market capitalization settled at N10.7tn. Market activity was mixed as total volume traded  improved 54.5% to settle at 434.2m units while value traded declined 41.7% to close at N1.7bn.

Performance across sectors remained mixed. In a complete turnaround of performance, the Banking Index fell 1.7% to emerge the worst performer as against being the sole gainer in the previous session. This was on the back of losses in STANBIC (-5.0%) and GUARANTY (-3.0%). Similarly, the Consumer goods (-0.5%) and Insurance (-0.3%) indices also declined. On the flipside, the Oil & Gas and the Industrial Goods indices advanced 0.7% and 0.1% each following gains in FORTE (+3.4%) and DANGCEM (+0.1%).

Investor sentiments as measured by market breadth (advancers/ decliners ratio), further weakened to 0.3x as a total of10 stocks appreciated against 35 decliners. Topping the gainers’ chart was EVANSMED (+9.0%) followed by PORTPAINT (+4.8%) and WEMABANK (+4.7%) while SKYEBANK (-5.8%), STANBIC (-5.0%) and FLOURMILL (-5.0%) led the laggards’ list. In the absence of a concrete trigger, the market is expected to continue to thrive on speculation hence, investors are advised to maintain a medium to long term investment horizon.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team