Stock Market Statistics: Tuesday, 17th January, 2017

Equities Reverse Gains as Consumer Goods Stocks Flounder … NSE ASI down 36bps 
The equities market bucked yesterday’s gains as the All Share Index (ASI) fell 36bps to close at 26,278.20 points whilst YTD loss rose to 2.2%. As a result, market capitalisation declined by N32.9bn to settle at N9.0tn.

Today’s performance was dragged by losses in Consumer Goods bellwethers – NESTLE (-3.6%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.6%) and GUINNESS (-4.2%) – and profit taking in ETI (-4.1%). Market activity however improved significantly as volume and value traded rose 113.7% and 45.8% to settle at 371.9m units and N1.7bn respectively.

Mixed Sector Performance
Sector performance was mixed as 3 sector indices advanced while 2 declined. The Consumer Goods index emerged the worst performer, down 1.5% due to decline in NESTLE (-3.6%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.6%) and GUINNESS (-4.2%).

The Oil & Gas index trailed with a loss of 0.3% as investors further sold–off in FORTE (-4.4%) and OANDO (-0.2%). On the bright side, the Insurance index gained 38bps on account of price appreciation in CONTINSURE (+3.8%) and WAPIC (+1.9%).

Similarly, the Industrial Goods index added 4bps on account of renewed appetite for CCNN (+4.8%) while the Banking index gained 2bps on the back of gains in ACCESS (+1.7%) and UBA (+1.8%) which offset losses in ETI(-4.1%) and ZENITH (-0.4%).

Market Breadth Turns Negative
In line with market performance, investor sentiment retreated as market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) weakened to 0.9x from 1.1x yesterday as 18 stocks advanced while 21 declined. UNITY (+5.1%), DIAMOND (+5.0%) and VITAFOAM (+4.9%) were top gainers while 7UP (-5.0%), NEM (-4.7%) and AGLEVENT (-4.5%) led laggards.

We expect investors’ dividend play ahead of corporate earnings releases to continue to dictate equities market sentiment in the short term, while developments regarding macro-economic fundamentals remain medium term drivers.

—Afrinvest Research