Nigerian Equity Markets | 21 Oct 2015: Market Halts Gains after Four Consecutive Days of Uptrend …NSE ASI Down 42bps

Lagos, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — The bullish run the Nigerian equities market enjoyed in the last four trading days was halted today as the benchmark index — All Share Index- slipped into the red losing 0.4% to close at 30,199.15points. The poor performance of the market was spearheaded by losses in DANGCEM (-2.6%), WAPCO (-0.5%) and GUARANTY (-0.2%). Market capitalization also fell N43.3bn to settle at N10.4tn. Trading activity level within the market was however mixed today as volume traded depreciated 15.5% to 207.5m units while value traded appreciated 6.8% to N3.4bn.

A mixed performance was recorded across sectors at the close of trade today. The Oil & Gas and the Consumer Goods indices were the only sector gainers, advancing 1.2% and 1.1% respectively, buoyed by price appreciations in OANDO (+8.3%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+2.1%). The Industrial Goods index declined the most (-1.5%) majorly due to sell-offs in DANGCEM (-2.6%) and WAPCO (-0.5%). In the same vein, the Banking and the Insurance indices lost 0.1%apiece.

Sentiments towards the Nigerian bourse turned negative today as observed from the market breadth of 0.7x after 14 stocks advanced against 19 declining stocks. The top gainers at the close of trade were OANDO (+8.3%), TRANSEXPRESS (+6.1%) and AIRSERVICE (+4.9%) while the top losers were ARBICO (-4.9%), ACADEMY (-4.8%) and DNMEYER (-4.1%). Given that, market performance ex-DANGCEM is +0.4% and on the back of banks’ impressive Q3:2015 result so far, we expect the market to continue to trade slightly positive in subsequent sessions especially as Q3:2015 results continue to trickle in.  

Source: Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited Research Team