Nigerian Equities Market Sustains Downtrend …NSE ASI Dips 0.6%

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The current downtrend in the local bourse continued today as the All Share Index closed in the red for the third consecutive trading session, down 0.6% to settle at 25,446.66 points despite a 0.6% uptick in DANGCEM. Accordingly, YTD performance worsened to -5.3% the decline today can be broadly attributed to price depreciation n NESTLE (-5.0%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.0%) and ZENITH (-2.2%). Consequently, the market lost N53.1bn as the total capitalization closed at N8.8tn. However, activity level surged as volume and value traded increased 43.8% and 82.7% to 207.2m units and N1.6bn respectively.

Mixed Performance across Sectors
Performance across sectors was mixed. The Insurance and Industrial Goods indices were the only advancers, adding 0.8% and 0.4% respectively against the backdrop of gains in MANSARD (+4.8%) and DANGCEM (+0.6%). On the flip side the Consumer Goods index led sector losers, down 2.5% on account of decline in NESTLE (-5.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.0%) while the Oil & Gas and Banking indices slid 0.6% and 0.3% as a result of losses in FORTE (-6.5%), OANDO (-1.7%), ZENITH(-2.2%) and ETI (-2.9%) respectively.

Investor Sentiment stays Weak
Investor sentiment slightly improved today, albeit still weak, as market breadth settled at 0.6x (from 0.3x yesterday) following 14 stocks that advanced while 22 declined. BETAGLASS (+5.0%), CAVERTON(+5.0%) and PRESCO (+4.9%) were the best performers while the worst performers were FORTE(-6.5%), NESTLE (-5.0%) and PZ (-5.0%). Performance in the market remains driven by weakening macroeconomic indicators as well as unimpressive earnings releases. We maintain our expectation of bargain hunters coming into the market in the trading sessions ahead on account of cheap valuation of stocks.

Source: Afrinvestor Research Nigeria