Nigeria Market Watch | June 25th 2015: Investor Sentiment Remains Weak…NSE ASI down 44bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — The Nigerian Equities market took another bearish slide as the NSE All Share Index (ASI) dipped 0.4% today. Performance was largely on account of sell pressure on ZENITHBANK (-2.0%),UNITYBNK (-2.8%) and FORTE OIL (-3.2%). Market capitalization also shed N49.6bn thereby shrinking to N11.3tn. Equally, Market activity weakened as volume and value traded declined 1.2% and 15.1% respectively after 306.5m units of shares worth N5.2bn were traded.

The Insurance index improved 1.5% in today’s trade as MANSARD (+5.0%) and CONTINSU (+1.0%) trended upbeat; hence, the sector emerged sole sector advancer. The Banking index maintained a bearish run as the sector further declined 1.1% on price loses in ZENITHBANK (-2.0%), UNITYBNK(-2.8%) and UBA (-2.9%). The Oil & Gas index followed, shedding 0.8% due to 3.2% loss in FORTE OIL. The Consumer Goods index and the Industrial Goods index also continued southwards by 0.4% and 0.1% apiece.

Market breadth (ratio of advancers to decliners) closes negative at 0.4x, slightly higher than yesterday’s close at 0.2x. Leading the 13 advancers today were ETERNA (+5.0%), MANSARD(+5.0%) and LEARNAFRICA (+4.1%) while top losers wereVONO (-5.0%), BETAGLAS (-5.0%) and DANGFLOUR (-4.9%) of 33 declining stocks. Given that sentiment in the market remained soft, we advise investors to tread cautiously as the bearish trend tends to linger.