Nigeria Market Watch | June 18th 2015: Nigerian Bourse Rambling Still …NSE ASI Down 5bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — There seems to be no respite for the Nigerian Bourse, as the benchmark Index – All Share Index dipped further, losing 5bps to berth at 33,460.50 points. Today’s negative close was broadly due to sell offs in CADBURY (-5.0%), SEPLAT (-4.3%) and OANDO (-3.9%). Market Capitalization further reduced, declining N6.1bn to dock at N11.4tn. On the contrary, market activity strengthened as volume and value traded appreciated 5.1% and 4.1% to close for the day at 203.8m units and N4.3bn respectively.

In a reversal of performance, the Banking Index gained the most appreciating 0.3% due to gains in UNION BANK (+2.6%) and ETI (+1.5%). In the same vein, the Industrial Goods and Insurance Indices appreciated 0.2% apiece. Contrariwise, the Oil & Gas index declined the most with -1.8% due to losses in SEPLAT (-4.3%) and OANDO (-3.6%), likewise the Consumer Goods Index with -0.1%.

Investor sentiments remained relatively unchanged as market breadth (advancer/decliners ratio) settled at 0.9x with 24 stocks advancing against 28 declining stocks. Top performers for the day were NASCON (+7.1%), MCNICHOLS (+4.9%) and UNION BANK (+2.6%) while the worst performing stocks were VONO (-9.0%), IKEJA HOTEL (-5.0%) and CADBURY (-5.0%). We expect current mood in the market to linger in view of policy clarification from the government even as earnings season approaches.