Nigeria Market Watch | May 15th 2015: Nigerian stock market 7bps up today

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Nigerian stock market advanced further, up 7bps today to close at 34,439.52 points. All share index sustained uptrend on the last three trading days of the week bringing W-o-W return to 0.1%. In the same vein market capitalization advanced N7.9bn to close at N11.7tn. The positive performance on the Nigerian Bourse was largely driven by appreciation in FORTE OIL (+8.5%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.8%). Market activity as measured by volume and value of shares traded however shed 48.0% and 65.4% to close 185.3m units and N1.4bn respectively.

Sector indices showed mixed performance with the Oil & Gas sector  leading the gainers with 2.4% return on price appreciations in FORTE OIL (+8.5%) and OANDO (+0.7%). The Consumer Goods index followed with 0.2% against the backdrop of rally in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.8%) and DANGOTE SUGAR (+3.1%). On the other hand, the Banking index led the decliners, down 0.6% on the back of sell-off in GUARANTY (-1.7%). The Insurance and Industrial Goods indices also shed 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

Market breadth closed negative (0.9x) as 19 stocks advanced against 22 decliners. The advancers were led by FORTE OIL (+8.5%), CHAMPION (+5.0%), IKEJA HOTEL (+5.0%) while HONEY FLOUR (-4.9%), LIVESTOCK (-4.8%) and TRANSEXPR (-4.5%) led the losers’ list. Performance in subsequent sessions is expected to be calm as investors await the decision of the MPC on Tuesday.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team.