Nigeria Equity Watch | 30 June 2015: Nigerian Bourse took a bullish leap as last-minute rally …

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Bourse took a bullish leap as last-minute rally in DANGOTE CEMENT (+3.5%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.9%) and UBN (+4.7%) fired up the Index. Intraday market movement indicated a broadly bearish session before a last minute jump saved the day. Hence, NSE ASI went up 0.6% to berth at 33,456.83 points and YtD loss moderated to 3.5%. We believe this last-minute rally was driven by mid-year portfolio reassessment by investors in a bid to wrap-up performance for H1:2015. Market capitalization added N70.9bn to dock at N11.4tn.  Market activity however slowed as volume and value traded declined 11.0% and 2.9% to 268.5m units and N4.3bn respectively.

Industrial Goods Index emerged the only gaining sector as price appreciation in DANGOTE CEMENT (+3.5%) led to the 1.9% rise in the index. The Insurance index declined the most by 1.4% as MANSARD (-4.4%) and CONTINSU (-1.0%) recorded losses. The Oil & Gas index shed 0.8% due to price depreciation in FORTE OIL (-1.5%) and OANDO (-1.3%). Declines in ZENITH (-2.3%) and GUARANTY (-1.1%) brought the Banking index down 0.5%. The Consumer Goods index also dip 0.3% as NESTLE shed 3.6%.

Market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) improved to 0.9x as 25 stocks advanced while 26 stocks declined. FIDSON (+8.2%), MAYBAKER (+5.4%) and CCNN (+5.0%) topped the advancers’ list while TRANSCOHOT (-9.7%), CUTIX (-4.8%) and PZ (-4.8%) led the market laggards. Despite the bearish trend observed in the market lately, we believe half year results which have started filtering into the market will strengthen market activity. As a result, we advise investors to take position in companies with interim dividend paying history.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team