Stock Market Statistics: Wednesday, 18th October 2017

Banking Stocks Drag Market Performance… NSE ASI down 8bps
The Nigerian Bourse extended losses to the second consecutive session as the All Share Index moderated 8bps to close at 36,641.52 points while YTD return weakened to 36.3%.

Likewise, market capitalization declined by N9.7bn to settle at N12.6tn on the back of pull-backs in Tier-1 – ACCESS (-2.2%), UBA (-1.5%) and ZENITH (-0.5%). Activity level softened as volume and value traded fell 6.0% and 0.4% to settle at 198.6m units and N2.9bn respectively.

Negative Sector Performance Continues
Similar to previous trading session, sector indices’ performance was largely bearish with 3 sectors declining while 2 closed flat. The Oil & Gas index depreciated the most, down 0.4% owing to a 3.0% loss in TOTAL.

The Insurance index followed, closing 0.3% lower due to losses in NEM (-2.9%) and LAWUNION (-4.9%) while the Banking index lost 0.2% as a result of sell-offs in ACCESS (-2.2%), UBA (-1.5%) and ZENITH (-0.5%).

Relatedly, Guaranty Trust Bank, a leading Tier-1 Bank, submitted its 9M:2017 result; gross earnings fell 5.9% Y-o-Y from N329.3bn in 9M:2016 to N309.9bn in 9M:2017 whereas PAT rose 7.3% from N117.1bn to N125.6bn.

The Consumer Goods index was unchanged as appreciations in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.3%) and DANGSUGA (+0.6%) were offset by depreciations in FLOURMILL (-2.7%) and NASCON (-4.7%). Similarly, the Industrial Goods index closed flat.

Investor Sentiment Weakens
Market breadth weakened from 1.0x recorded on Tuesday to a negative close of 0.6x after 12 stocks advanced against 21 decliners. Today’s best performing stocks were GLAXOSMITH (+5.0%), CUSTODYINS (+4.9%) and LEARNAFRCA (+3.9%), while NAHCO (-5.6%), LAWUNION (-4.9%) and CAVERTON (-4.8%) were the worst performers. Despite consecutive negative closes, we envisage a rebound in market performance in subsequent sessions due to positive outlook on Q3:2017 earnings results.