Nigeria Equity Watch | 15 July 2015 : All Share index shed 128bps to drop below the psychologically important level of 31,000 points

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian equities market continued its negative strides into the eleventh session as the All Share Index (ASI) dipped further by 1.3% to settle at 30,970.51pts. In like manner, market capitalisation also fell N137.4bn to close at 10.6tn. Against the gloomy investor sentiments in the equities market, price decline in bellwether consumer goods (NIGERIAN BREWERIES) and industrial goods (DANGOTE CEMENT) counters led to the further decline in the broader index. On the contrary, market activity measured by volume and value of shares traded both advanced to 423.1mn units (+56.0%) and N7.5bn (+68.3%) respectively. This surge in market activity was due to the 234.7mn units worth N4.2bn of ZENITH BANK shares traded today at N17.95k today.

All Sectors in Red
Sell-offs among sector baskets continued today as all sector indices closed in red. The consumer goods index led the pack of sector decliners with a 1.7% plunge attributable to the loss recorded in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-3.7%). The industrial goods and banking indices also followed with 1.5% and 1.1% decline consequent on losses recorded in DANGOTE CEMENT (-1.2%) and ZENITH BANK (-1.8%) respectively. The Insurance and Oil & Gas indices also closed down with 6bps and 5bps accordingly.

Market Sentiments Remain Weak
Market breadth (ratio of advancers to decliners) stayed negative at 0.3x as 11 stocks advanced against 40 declining stocks. Leading today’s top gainers were FORTE OIL (+9.4%), FCMB (+8.7) and DIAMOND (+4.2%) while OANDO (-8.8%), TRANSCORP (-8.8%) and CWG (-5.0%) led the losers’ chart. The recent trend in the market in our view may not support short term investment strategy save for strategically calculated technical arbitraging. Hence, investors are advised to trade with caution while adopting a medium to long term investment perspective as the anticipation of market recovery is patiently awaited.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team