Nigeria Equity Watch | 29 June 2015: Market Opens Upbeat …NSE ASI up 120bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) — Performance in the Nigerian Bourse today proved bullish as the NSE ASI opened 1.2% up to peg at 33,249.19 points. This was fostered by gains in DANGOTE CEMENT (+2.4%) ZENITH (+2.3%) and FORTE OIL (+5.0%). Market capitalization also improved by N135.1bn to berth N11.4tn compared to the previous session. Market activity on the other hand declined as value and volume traded fell 51.0% and 10.0% to N4.4bn and 301.8m respectively.

The Oil & Gas Index rebounded 2.9% due to appreciation in FORTE OIL (+5.0%) and SEPLAT (+2.7%). Spurred by investor appetite in ZENITH (+2.3%) and ETI (+2.3%), the banking index also improved 1.4%. Likewise, the Industrial Goods Index rose 1.4% as DANGOTE CEMENT appreciated 2.4%, even as the Insurance and Consumer Goods indices advanced 0.3% and 0.2% accordingly.

Market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) improved to 1.5x. FORTE OIL (+5.0%), GUINNESS (+5.0%) and MAYBAKER (+4.9%), led the 30 gainers while NEIMETH (-4.9%), ETRANZACT (-4.8%) and COSTAIN (-4.5%) led the 20 losers. We anticipate that market trend in past weeks will be maintained such that quick profits are made at the beginning of the week based on relatively cheap stocks, then sentiment wanes towards the end of the week. We therefore advice investors to tread cautiously.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team