Nigerian Equity Markets | 20 Oct 2015: Nigerian Market Extends Gains…NSE ASI up 35bps

Lagos, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — The Nigerian Equities market continued on its bullish start to the week as the All Share Index (ASI) appreciated 0.4%to close at 30,325.11points. The positive outing was broadly driven by gains in FORTE (+3.5%), ETI (+2.5%) and GUARANTY (+1.6%). Accordingly, investors gained N36.5bn bringing total capitalization within the market to N10.4tn. Activity level improved today as volume and value traded grew 134.9% and 66.6% to berth at 245.4m units and N3.2bn respectively.

Across sectors, the Oil & Gas (+1.4%) and the Banking (+1.2%) indices were the only gainers at the close of trade today buoyed by price appreciation in FORTE (+3.5%) and GUARANTY (+1.6%). The Insurance index declined the most (-1.3%) while the Consumer Goods and the Industrial Goods Indices declined 0.1% apiece due to losses in UNILEVER (-4.6%) and BETAGLAS (-2.3%).

Investor sentiments towards the market turned positive today as market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) stood at 1.6x resulting from 25 gaining stocks against 16 losing stocks. The gainers’ chart was topped by TRANSEXPRESS (+9.5%), GLAXOSMITH (+5.5%) and PZ (+4.9%) while VITAFOAM (-5.0%), ETERNA (-5.0%) and MANSARD (-4.9%) led the laggards’ list. Consequent on the decline in the benchmark index in the previous weeks, some value stocks in the Banking and Oil & Gas indices have attracted investors’ interest, and this can be tied to the positive performances of the market so far in the week. We continue to maintain that the investment case for Nigeria remains compelling for long-term investors, despite the macroeconomic challenges. Within the short term, market performance going forward is expected to be driven by sentiments towards the Q3:2015 results.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team