Nigeria Market Watch | May 14th 2015: Nigerian equity market sustains uptrend…

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- Bargain hunting positioning in bellwether equities ensured a bullish close in the Nigerian equities market for the second consecutive trading session. The All Share Index rose 61bps to 34,416.29 points while market capitalization gained N71.8bn to close at N11.7bn. Month-to-date (MTD) loss of the benchmark index hence pared to 0.8%. Appreciation in FORTE OIL (+5.0%), ZENITH (+3.3%), GUARANTY (+1.0%) and DANGOTE CEMENT (+0.6%) drove positive market performance today. Market activity also picked up, with daily volume and value traded rising 1.7% and 20.1% to 356.6m units and N4.0bn respectively.

All Sector Indices Closed Positive, as Oil and Gas Index Led Gains
The Oil and Gas Index rebounded from a four day losing streak to post the best daily return of 1.8%. This was against the backdrop of bargain hunting in FORTE OIL (+5.0%) and OANDO (+1.7%). The Banking Index followed, up 1.2% on renewed investor appetite in ZENITH (+3.3%) and GUARANTY (+1.0%). The Insurance index also gained 0.4% while the Consumer and Industrial Goods indices were up 0.3%and 0.2% in that order.

Market Breadth Positive
Market Breadth was positive today at 1.4x (25 advancers versus 18 decliners). FORTE OIL, LIVESTOCK FEEDS and AIR SERVICE gained 5.0% each to lead other gainers while IKEJA HOTEL (-8.8%), SKYE BANK (-8.8%) and CUTIX (-4.8%) led the decliners. With strengthening appetite for equities from bargain hunting investors and improving level of market activity, the market may likely ride the wave to a positive close this week.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team.