Nigeria Market Watch | June 1st 2015: Nigerian Equities Market Drags on Buhari’s Torch…NSE ASI down 0.8%

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Nigerian Bourse fell 0.8% at the close of market today and berthed at 34,044.65 points. Today’s decline was largely due to price depreciation in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.1%) and ZENITH BANK (-2.5%). Market capitalization shed N90.3bn to close at N11.6tn. Market activity also weakened as volume and value dropped 52.1% and 53.9% to dock at 340.6m units and N5.5bn respectively. 

The Industrial sector Index rose marginally by 1bps as ASHAKA CEMENT added 0.3%. All other sectors closed in the red. The Oil & Gas index led the sector decliners, down 1.5% against the backdrop of declines in TOTAL (-7.5%) and FORTE OIL (-4.6%). The Banking, Insurance and Consumer Goods indices followed with 1.4%, 1.2% and 0.9% depreciation respectively. 

Market breadth closed negative (0.7x) as 21 stocks advanced while 32 stocks retracted. VONO (+4.7%), HONEY FLOUR (+4.6%) and PORTPAINT (+4.4%) led the advancers while TOTAL (-7.5%), LIVESTOCK (-5.0%) and CONTINSURE (-4.7%) led the decliners. We reiterate our position that market mood has continued to drag due to lack of a clear cut direction on the part of the new government. Further to the above, we advise that investors maintain a medium to long term position in fundamentally sound equities ahead of key policy pronouncement from the new government.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team.