Nigerian Equity Markets | 23 Nov 2015: Nigerian Equities Market in Free fall? …NSE ASI down 102bps

Lagos, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — There seems to be no respite for the Nigerian Equities market at the moment as the bearish run was extended to the 6^th trading day, today. The Benchmark Index -All Share Index- depreciated 1.0% to close at 27, 843.55points. The poor performance today was broadly driven by sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-4.2%), ZENITH (-3.0%) and GUARANTY (-2.1%) as market capitalization fell N9.9bn to N9.6tn. However, market activity level strengthened as volume and value traded appreciated 8.5% and 111.0% to 155.0m units and N2.2bn respectively.

At the close of trade today, all sector indices closed in the red with the Banking Index depreciating the most (-2.3%) against the backdrop of losses sustained in ETI (-3.7%) and GUARANTY (-2.1%). In the same vein, the Consumer goods and Insurance sector indices  lost 2.0% and 0.5% respectively due to sell-offs in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-4.2%) and CONTINSURE (-4.0%). The Industrial goods Index lost 0.3% while the Oil &Gas index was marginally down (2bps) to close out the poor performance. 

Investor sentiments within the Bourse waned further as market breadth settled at 0.3x as 9 stocks advanced against 26 declining stocks. The gainers’ chart was topped by ETRANZACT (+4.7%), PORTPAINT (+4.4%) and FCMB (+4.3%) while CHAMPION (-5.0%), GUINNESS (-5.0%) and NAHCO (-5.0%) lost the most at the close of trade. As the market continues to trend southwards in the absence of any news flow to sway investors sentiments to the positive horizon, we imagine any gains recorded in the market to be driven by bargain hunting. Hence, we maintain our medium to long term view for investment decisions.  

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team