Nigeria Market Watch | June 4th 2015: Nigerian Equities Market All Share Index Records Highest Decline in 8 Weeks

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Nigerian Equities market sustained its losing streak today, declining 1.2% to berth at 33,476.77pts. Market capitalization also decreased N88.6bn to settle at N11.4tn. Performance of the equities market today was broadly driven by price depreciations in banking bellwethers — ZENITH (-4.8%), UBA (-3.6%) and GUARANTY (-2.4%). Similarly, market activities weakened, as volume and value traded shrank 18.5 %( 205.8m units) and 35.9 %( N2.2bn) accordingly.

NSE sector performance was broadly negative. Highest sector decline was recorded in the Banking index which dropped 2.6%. We note that today’s decline in the Banking index was the highest in its 6 days of consecutive losses. The Insurance index followed closely with a loss of 2.1% on the back of declines in MANSARD (-4.3%) and CONTINSURE (-4.8%). The Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices also closed negative with 1.1% and 0.4% losses respectively. On the contrary, the Industrial Goods index closed marginally positive, up 0.2% against the back drop of a 1.4% appreciation in WAPCO.

Market breadth stayed negative at 0.5x after 19 stocks appreciated while 37 stocks depreciated in prices during today’s trade. BERGER (+6.8%), JBERGER (+5.0%) and BETA GLASS (+5.0%) topped the gainers’ chart while JOS BREW (-4.9%), ETERNA (-4.8%) and FIDSON (-4.8%) were the highest losers.  Following the bearish sentiments that has permeated the market so far in the week, we expect the market to close the week below the water.