Nigeria Equity Watch | 27 July 2015 : Equities Market Trades Without Drive…NSE ASI Declines 91bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Bourse benchmark index (ASI) continued southwards, shedding 0.9% to berth at 30,807.54pts. This pulled YTD return lower to –11.1%. Performances of some largely capitalized counters such as NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-3.3%), ZENITH (-3.0%) and GUARANTY (-1.7%) were accountable for the decline in the ASI today. Market capitalization contracted N120.9bn and closed N10.6tn. However, market activity strengthened as volume and value traded improved 38.8% and 28.2% to 184.2m units and 2.3bn respectively.

All the sectors within our coverage trended negative at the close of market. The Banking index declined the most (-1.7%) largely due to price depreciation in ZENITH (-3.0%), GUARANTY (-1.7%) and UNITY (-3.1%). The Insurance index followed suit — having declined 1.6% — due to losses in MANSARD (-5.0%) and NEM (-1.6%). NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-3.3%) and 7UP (-5.0%) were the weightiest counters which brought about the 1.5% decline in the Consumer Goods Index. Bearish sentiments on FORTE OIL (-1.1%) and MOBIL (-2.1%) within the Oil & Gas index were largely accountable for its 0.6% decline. The Industrial index waned 0.1%.

The market breadth berthed at 0.4x (advancers/decliners ratio) as 12 counters gained while 33 declined. Topping the gainers’ list were REDSTAREX (+10.0%), TRANSEXPR (+4.5%) and COSTAIN (+4.5%) while the top market laggards were PORTPAINT (-5.2%), MANSARD (-5.0%) and NNFM (-5.0%). The influx of H1:2015 results has not been enough to boost investors’ sentiment so far, we therefore advice investors to tread cautiously and maintain a medium to long term horizon in equities.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team