Nigeria Equity Watch | 8 July 2015 : Nigerian bourse sustaining Losses, ASI down 108bps

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa) —The NSE All Share Index (ASI) shed an additional 1.1% to close at 32,031.73pts. Today’s decline in index was against the losses recorded in OANDO (-4.9%) and UBA (-4.2%). Similarly, market capitalisation dipped N119.0bn to settle at N10.9tn for the day. Market activities equally decreased as volume declined 10.7% to 194.0m units while value also dropped 2.4% to close at N2.9bn.

Consumer Goods and Banking Sectors Shed Points for the 7^th Session
Sector performances remained gloomy as all sectors save for the Insurance index shed points. Insurance sector emerged with 0.1% gain due to increases recorded in CUSTODYINS (+4.9%) and CONTINSURE (+2.0%). In line with the overall market sentiment, the Consumer Goods and Banking sector indices lost 0.1% and 1.0% respectively making seven consecutive sessions of losses sustained by the bellwether sectors. On the back of price depreciations suffered by OANDO (-4.9%) and FORTE OIL (-1.5%), the Oil & Gas basket dipped the most with 1.7%. This was also followed by Industrial Goods index which plunged 1.3%.

Frail Sentiments Remain
Market breadth went further south to 0.4x (13 advancers vs 31 decliners), underscoring the weak market sentiments. At the close of trading, ASHAKA CEMENT (+5.0%), IKEJA HOTEL (+4.9%) and CUSTODYINS (+4.9%) topped the gainers’ chart while BETAGLAS (-5.0%), OANDO (-4.9%) and UNITYBNK (-4.8%) led the losers’ table. As vague policy signals continue to pervade Nigeria’s investment landscape, we advise investors to stay glued to medium to long term investment horizon.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team