Nigerian Equities Market Extends Gains to 5th Consecutive Session… NSE ASI up 0.5%

The Nigerian bourse, at the close of trade today, extended gains to the 5th consecutive session as the All Share Index (ASI) rose 0.5% to settle at 32,981.63 points, thus nudging YTD gain to 22.7%. Quite similar to yesterday, performance was buoyed by sustained buy interest in market heavyweights – GUARANTY (+1.9%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.6%) and DANGCEM (+0.1%).

Consequently, investors gained N52.9m as market capitalization increased to N11.4bn. However, activity level was mixed as volume traded declined 17.6% to 180.3m units while value traded rose 22.7% to N2.6bn.

Positive Performance Across Sectors
Performance across sectors was positive as all indices closed in the green. The Banking index advanced the most, up 1.3% due to sustained buy interest in GUARANTY (+1.9%) and ETI (+5.0%) while upticks in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.6%) and 7UP (+8.8%) drove the Consumer Goods index 0.5% northwards.

Similarly, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices rose 0.3% and 0.2% on the back of gains in NEM (+4.9%) and DANGCEM(+0.1%) respectively while appreciation in SEPLAT (+1.1%) and FORTE (+2.7%) pushed the Oil & Gas index 4bps higher.

Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment as reflected by market breadth improved to 1.9x (from 1.2x recorded yesterday) – 29 stocks advanced while 15 declined. The best performing stocks were 7UP (+8.8%), NEIMETH (+7.1%) and CAP (+5.0%) while UPL (-9.6%), CHAMPION (-7.6%) and UCAP (-7.3%) were the worst performers. Whilst we expect market performance in the near term to remain largely driven by expectation of positive H1:2017 corporate reports, we do not rule of the possibility of some “end of the week” profit taking in subsequent sessions.

NASD OTC Exchange Market Activities
In the NASD OTC exchange, three counters traded – NDEP, SOURCE, CSCS AND IGI  – with total volume and value of transactions closing at 16,300 units and N47,375 respectively. IGI accounted for 61.3% of total volume traded, followed by CSCS (30.7%).

Market Statistics: Wednesday, 12th July 2017