Nigerian Equity Markets | 19 Oct 2015: Late DANGCEM Rally uplifts Nigerian Equity Market…NSE ASI up 1.3%

Lagos, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — The Nigerian bourse opened the week positive as the Benchmark Index — All Share Index — was up 129bps to close at 30, 219.01 points. The Market was heading for a marginal gain up until a massive rally in DANGCEM (+4.9%) few minutes to the close of trade uplifted the bourse. Some other counters that drove the positive performance were GUARANTY (+0.2%) and ZENITH (+0.1%). Similarly, a total of N132.2bn was gained by investors as Market Capitalization settled at N10.3tn. However, activity level waned marginally as volume and value traded declined 0.3% and 0.1% to 104.5m units and N1.9bn respectively.

Performance across sectors was mixed. The Consumer Goods and the Insurance indices lost 0.3% and 0.1% respectively consequent on losses in GUINNESS (-2.6%) and AIICO (-2.2%). On the flipside, the Industrial Goods Index appreciated the most (+2.7%) bolstered by the late rally in DANGCEM (+4.9%). The Banking and Oil & Gas indices were also up 0.4% and 0.3% respectively driven by price appreciation in GUARANTY (+0.2%) and MOBIL (+6.0%).

Sentiments in the market remained rather unchanged from the close of the previous week as market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) settled at 0.9x consequent on 18 stocks that advanced against 20 declining stocks. The best performing stocks at the close of trade were DANGCEM (+4.9%), BERGER (+4.9%) and HONYFLOUR (+4.7%) while TRANSEXPRESS (-7.1%), NASCON (-6.9%) and WEMABANK (-5.0%) were the worst performing stocks. As activity level in the equities market remains weak despite the attractive valuations, we expect that Q3:2015 earnings results by quoted companies will continue to shape the sentiment of investors in the short term.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team