Nigerian Equities Rebound on account of Bargain hunting… NSE ASI up 7bps

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Nigerian equities market bucked a 3-day losing streak as the All Share Index (ASI) added 7bps to close at 25,496.71 points. Also, market capitalization increased by N6.5bn to settle at N8.8tn while YTD loss pared to -5.1%. Today’s performance was mainly driven by gains in GUARANTY (+1.7%), NIGERIANBREWERIES (+1.2%) and FBNH (+3.2%). On the contrary, market activity declined as volume and value traded fell by 38.5% and 35.2% to settle at 247.7m units and N1.2bn respectively.

Mixed Sector Performance 
Performance across sectors was mixed as 3 sectors advanced while 2 declined. The Banking index improved 0.8% following gains in GUARANTY (+1.7%) and ZENITH (+0.4%). The Insurance index also came in higher at 0.5% due to price appreciation in AIICO (+3.8%) and CONTINSURE (+2.5%) while the Consumer Goods index gained 0.3% on account of NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.2%) and FLOURMILL(+2.8%). Contrarily, the Industrial Goods index dipped 2.3% as investors booked profit in WAPCO(-5.0%) while the Oil & Gas index closed in the red, down 0.6% on the back of declines in SEPLAT(-2.0%) and MOBIL (-0.6%).

Market Breadth Strengthens
Investor sentiment improved today as market breadth stood at 1.2x from 0.5x yesterday after 18 stocks advanced against 15 declining stocks. The best performing stocks today were  TRANSEXPR (+4.6%), FIDSON (+4.3%) and TRANSCORP (+4.1%) while UNILEVER (-5.0%), WAPCO (-5.0%) and ASHAKACEM(-4.9%) were the worst performers. Following three consecutive days of a downtrend, investors took a position in stocks that have declined and this drove the positive performance today. Furthermore, given the improved sentiment in the market, we expect this positive trend to be sustained in the trading session ahead.

NASD OTC Exchange Market Activities
In the NASD OTC exchange, the total volume and value of transactions traded stood at 2.0m units and N15.6m respectively with only 2 stocks trading today. CSCS declined 2.8% to close at N5.95 while WAMCO gained 0.7% to close the day at N145.00. 

Source: Afrinvestor Research Website