Market Statistics Tuesday, 26th September 2017

Equities Close Lower Amid MPC Outcome… NSE ASI down 1.2%
As investors awaited the outcome of the MPC meeting, the Equities market closed on a negative note at the end of trading today. The All Share Index (ASI) declined 1.2% to settle at 34,951.27 points while YTD gain retreated to 30.1%.

As a result, investors lost N140.5bn as market capitalisation moderated to N12.0tn. The decline in today’s market performance was largely due to losses recorded in DANGCEM (-3.3%), NESTLE (-1.6%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.6%). Contrarily, activity level spiked as volume and value traded surged 366.9% and 164.9% to 500.3m units and N3.6bn respectively.

Industrial Goods Index Leads Sector Decliners
The Industrial Goods index led sector decliners with a 1.7% loss owing to a decline in DANGCEM (-3.3%). The Consumer Goods index followed suit, down 0.9% as NESTLE and NIGERIAN BREWERIES fell 1.6% and 0.6% respectively.

On the flip side, the Oil & Gas index rose 0.4% on the back of OANDO (+3.3%) while the Insurance index (+0.2%) closed higher as a result of upticks in MANSARD (+4.7%) and NEM (+4.5%).

Likewise, the Banking index marginally gained 0.1% due to price appreciation in ZENITH (+0.5%) and GUARANTY (+0.3%) which offset losses recorded in UBA (-0.6%) and ACCESS (-0.5%).

Market Breadth Settles in Negative Position
Investor sentiment weakened today as market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) retreated to 0.8x from 1.2x recorded yesterday after 15 stocks advanced against 19 decliners. The gainers chart was led by NEIMETH (+4.8%), NASCON (+4.8%) and MANSARD (+4.7%) while the worst performers were INTBREW (-5.0%), MCHNICOLS (-4.8%) and CONTINSURE (-4.5%).

With the MPC voting to keep interest rates steady, we do not expect to see any major impact on the equities market. However, we advise investors to stay bullish on stocks with sound fundamentals ahead of Q3:2017 earnings releases.