Nigeria Equity Watch | 22 July 2015 : Nigerian Equities Retreat Gains … NSE ASI lost 22bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian equities market retreated from 2 days of consecutive gains, as the All Share Index (ASI) shed 22bps to close at 31,267.25 points, driving YTD losses to 9.8%. Market Capitalization also declined N22.2bn to N10.6tn. The negative close of the market today is against the backdrop of extended sell-offs in Banking counters — ETI (-5.0%), UNITY BANK (-5.0%), FBN HOLDINGS (-3.6%), GUARANTY (-0.9%) and FCMB (6.3%). Market activity also softened (due to high base effect of yesterday) as volume and value traded declined 68.8% and 83.6% to 329.2m units and N2.6bn respectively.

Banking Index leads Sector Decliners
All sector indices within our coverage declined today, save for the consumer goods index which advanced 0.6% due to gains in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.4%), PZ CUSSONS (+7.6%), DANGOTE SUGAR (+4.9%), FLOURMILL (+2.7%) and HONEYWELL (+8.6%). The Banking Index recorded the weakest performance amongst sectors, as it shed 1.3% on account of losses in ETI (-5.0%), UNITY BANK (-5.0%) and FBN HOLDINGS (-3.6%). The Insurance index trailed, dipping 0.6% due to extended bearish trading in CONTINENTAL REINSURANCE (-4.5%) and AIICO (-3.1%); followed  by the Industrial Index which closed 0.2%, down on losses sustained in LAFARGE AFRICA (-0.5%) and CCNN (-3.7%).

Market Breadth Negative
Market breadth measured by advancers/decliners ratio was negative at 0.7x (21 advancers versus 32 decliners). NEIMETH (9.0%), HONYFLOUR (8.6%) and PZ (7.6%) were the top gaining stocks while CCNN (7.3%) FCMB (-6.3%) and TRANSEXPR (-5.9%) led the laggards. We expect the market to continue to trade sideways as investors keep an eye on earnings releases.