Nigeria Market Watch | May 13th 2015: Bulls Resurface after 7-Day Bear Dominance

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Nigerian Equities Market closed 27bps higher today after seven days of consecutive losses. The gain recorded brought the index level to 34,208.30 points driven majorly by investor rally in Banking counters – ZENITH (+2.5%) and GTBANK (+2.0%). Similarly, market capitalization improved N31.5bn to close at N11.6tn. Market activity was however mixed as volume declined 33.3% to settle at 350.7m units while value advanced 1.9% to peg at N3.4bn.

Banking Stocks Lead Sector Gainers
On the back of price appreciation in lead counters such as GTBANK (+2.0%), ZENITH (+2.5%) and ETI (2.3%), the Banking sector advanced 1.3% after declining in the last three trading days. The Consumer Goods sector followed with 0.3% attributable to gains in GUINNESS (3.2%) and 7UP (5.0%). The Industrial Goods sector also closed in the green (+0.1%) despite the 0.3% depreciation in DANGOTE CEMENT. On the contrary, the Oil & Gas and Insurance sectors declined 0.1% and 1.1% respectively.

Market Breadth Favours Decliners
Market breadth berthed at 0.7x as 20 stocks advanced while 27 declined. BETAGLASS (+10.0%), 7UP (+5.0%) and NEIMETH (+5.0%) advanced the most while HONYFLOUR (-5.0%), PREMBREW (-5.0%) and JOSBREW (-5.0%) led the losers. We reiterate our belief of the calm state of the market owing to investors’ cautious trading as the market awaits successful transition to new government come May 29^th. In the interim, we opine that investors are more likely to stick to a sideways trading strategy.
Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team.