Nigeria Market Watch | May 27th 2015: Nigerian stock market stock sustains uptrend…NSE ASI Up 0.2%

Lagos, Nigeria (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Nigerian Bourse marginally improved on gains recorded in the previous session as the benchmark index closed 0.2% higher today. The All Share Index (ASI) close at 34,355.31 points bringing YTD return to -0.9%. Today’s gain was mainly due to price appreciation in counters such as GUARANTY (+0.3%) and DANGOTE CEMENT (+0.6%). Market capitalization also advanced N49.7bn to close N11.7tn. Market activity was however mixed as value traded rose 0.9% to N3.7bn while volume traded declined 42.7% to 309.7m units.

Banking Index Reverses Yesterday’s Gains
The Banking index declined 0.1% on depreciation in UBA (-2.2%) and ETI (-0.8%). The Consumer Goods index also shed 0.2%, extending losses to the 7^th trading session. Conversely, the Industrial Goods index improved 0.6% as DANGOTE CEMENT advanced 0.6% even as the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices also gained 0.5% and 0.3% respectively.

We See the Market Closing Positive for the Week
Market breadth measured by advancers/decliners ratio continued positive at 2.1x as 31 counters advanced while 15 counters declined. VONO (+9.5%), UNITY BANK (+8.7%) and NPFMCRFBK (7.3%) recorded the highest gains. We note that UNITY BANK has continued upbeat for the fourth consecutive day. On the other hand, MAY & BAKER (-5.1%), PREMBREW (-5.0%) and INTERLINK (-4.9%) led the market highest decliners. We anticipate that the stock market will continue to trade as observed today in the session ahead, hence we see the market closing positive for the week.

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team.