The local bourse slightly upturned at the close of trade yesterday following price appreciation in GUARANTY (+2.5%), PRESCO (+9.7%) and NASCON (+9.9%).
As a result, the All Share Index (“ASI”) rose 1bp to 30,833.5 points, YTD return stagnated at -1.9% while market capitalisation increased by N1.5bn to N11.6tn. In the same vain, activity level improved as volume and value traded advanced 1360.2% and 99.8% to 1.9bn units and N2.8bn respectively.
The most active stocks by volume were WEMABANK (1.7bn units), CHAMS (99.5m units) and UBA (17.3m units) while WEMABANK (N1.3bn), GUARANTY (N349.0m) and NESTLE (N219.3m) led stocks by value.
Banking Index Emerges Lone Gainer
Across sectors, market performance remained bearish as 4 of 5 indices under our coverage trended southward.
The Banking index emerged the lone gainer, up 0.4% due to buying interest in WEMABANK (+9.6%), GUARANTY (+2.5%) and ETI (+1.2%). On the flip side, the Industrial Goods index shed the most, down 1.4% due to sell offs in CCNN (-5.0%) while the Oil & Gas index trailed declining 13bps on the back of losses in OANDO (-0.9%).
Similarly, the Insurance index fell 12bps following price depreciation in CUSTODIAN (-0.8%) and AIICO (-5.3%) while sell pressures in DANGFLOUR (-4.6%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.4%) and PZ (-5.0%) dragged the Consumer Goods index down by 8bps to close the trading session.
Investor Sentiment Strengthens
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 0.8x, a mild improvement from the 0.6x recorded yesterday as 14 stocks advanced against the 17 stocks that declined. The best performers were CILEASING (+9.9%), NASCON (+9.9%) and PRESCO (+9.7%) while SOVREININ (-9.1%), UBN (-7.0%) and AIICO (-5.3%) were the worst performing stocks. Despite yesterday’s mild uptick in performance, we maintain a conservative outlook for tomorrow’s trading session as investor sentiment remains weak.
However, we opine that the lingering bearish sentiment continue to present attractive opportunities for investors to take position.
