Nigeria’s equity positive momentum: 17 Feb 2015

NSE ASI rises 261bps
The Nigerian Equity Market sustained upward momentum today as the All Share Index surged 261 basis points to close at 28,452.60pts while market capitalisation also added N241.6bn to close N9.5tn. Today’s positive performance was an extension of yesterday’s price appreciation in large cap stocks — Dangote Cement (3.6%), GTBank (8.5%) and Nestle (5.0%). Market activity however softened, as volume and value traded declined 2.7% and 50.6% to 500.2m units and N3.5bn respectively.

Broad Sector Gains
All sectors advanced today. The Banking sector gained 3.9% to lead sector gainers on the back of the sustained rally in GTBank (8.5%) and Zenith (5.4%); the Consumer Goods basket followed with a 2.8% gain as Nestle and Nigerian Breweries gained 5.0% and 1.6% respectively. The Oil & Gas, Industrial Goods and Insurance indices also gained 1.8%, 1.3% and 0.3% respectively.

Market Breadth Turns Positive
As 25 stocks advanced against 17 declining stocks, market breadth closed positive at 1.5x (advancers/decliners). At the close of trading, Flourmill (9.8%), Oando (9.1%) and Transcorp (8.5%) paced gains while Dangote Flour (9.7%), UAC-Prop (8.7%) and Julius Berger (5.0%) topped the losers’ chart. At 42.7, the RSI trend line shows an upward inclination relative to the oversold position last Friday. The Bull Run in the Global Crude Oil market, relative stability in the domestic foreign exchange market, coupled with bargain hunting in equities which lost significantly last week are major factors driving the recent rally in the Nigerian Bourse. As cheap stocks continue to whet investors’ appetite, we expect the market to sustain the Bull Run and close in the positive territory this week, even as we anticipate profit taking activities to set in before the end of the week.

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