Equities Market Extends Bearish Performance… NSE ASI down 12bps

Equities Market Extends Bearish Performance… NSE ASI down 12bps
The bearish performance of the domestic bourse was sustained as the All Share Index (ASI) fell 12bps to settle at 40,763.93 points today while YTD return moderated to 6.6%. Consequently, investors lost N18.4bn as market capitalization declined to N14.7tn.

Yesterday’s negative performance was largely on account of sell-offs in market bellwethers – DANGCEM (-2.1%), GUARANTY (-0.6%) and WAPCO (-5.1%). Despite the bearish performance, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded appreciated 27.7% and 148.3% to 309.4m units and N7.5bn respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (76.7m), FBNH (24.3m) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (21.0m) while NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N2.7bn), ZENITH (N2.1bn) and INTBREW (N760.1m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods Indices Trend Northwards amidst Bearish Sector Performance
Performance across sectors was broadly bearish as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage closed southwards save the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices.

The Industrial Goods index depreciated the most, shedding 2.7% due to selloffs in DANGCEM (-0.6%) and WAPCO (-5.1%). The Banking and Insurance indices also lost 0.6% and 0.4% respectively on account of profit taking in GUARANTY (-2.1%), WEMA (-3.2%) and CONTINSURE (-5.1%). On the flip side, the Oil & Gas index gained 0.6% following buying interest in FORTE (+4.9%) and ETERNA (+3.4%) while the Consumer Goods index inched 0.3% higher, as a result of bargain hunting in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+2.9%).

Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved from 0.7x recorded in the previous session to 0.8x as 19 stocks advanced against 24 stocks that declined.

The top performing stocks were LEARNAFRCA (+9.2%), TRANSCORP (+8.0%) and GLAXOSMITH (+5.6%) while CONTINSURE (-5.1%), UNITY (-4.7%) and FLOURMILL (-4.7%) were the least performing stocks.

Following the bearish performance in yesterday’s session albeit the improvement in investor sentiment, we expect bargain hunting to continue to drive positive market performance in the near term as Q1:2018 earnings reports roll out.