Nigerian Equity Markets | 23 Nov 2016: Bulls Creep into The Market … NSE ASI up 21bps

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The hunt for a bargain in value counters halted the erstwhile unrelenting negative performance of the benchmark index as the NSEASI gained 21bps to close at 25,517.00 points at the end of the trade. Accordingly, market capitalization advanced by N19.2bn to settle at N8.8tn. Today’s positive performance was largely as a result of bargain hunting in NESTLE (+1.3%), GUARANTY (+1.2%), PZ (+4.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.2%). Market activity was however mixed as volume traded rose 37.0% to settle at 165.7m units while value traded fell 5.0% to settle at N1.1bn respectively.

Oil & Gas Index Emerges Sector Outlier
All sector indices closed in the green save for the Oil & Gas index (-1.2%) which was dragged by continuous sell-off in FORTE (-6.2%) and TOTAL (-4.1%). The Banking index led sector gainers after appreciating 75bps as investors hunted for a bargain in GUARANTY (+1.2%) and UBA (+1.2%). The uptrend in NESTLE (+1.3%), PZ (+4.9%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.2%) pushed the Consumer Goods index 50bps higher whilst the Insurance index gained 0.2% on account of AIICO (+3.5%). The Industrial Goods index rose 0.1% on the back of appreciation in CAP (+2.9%).

Market Breadth Turns Positive
Investor sentiment improved significantly today as reflected in the market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) which settled at 1.7x (from 0.6x yesterday) on account of 19 advancing stocks against 11 decliners. STERLING (+5.7%), OANDO (+5.0%) and FLOURMILL (+5.0%) led the gainers while FORTE (-6.2%) JULIUS BERGER (-5.0%) and AFRIPRUD (-4.3%) led the laggards.  As projected, the attractive prices of some value counters spurred bargain hunting by short-term investors. However, we believe this positive momentum may be short-lived as weakened macroeconomic performance continues to weigh on investor sentiment.

Source: Afrinvest West Africa Research Team