Equities market continues negative momentum as ASI down 49bps

In line with expectation, the bearish run of the equities market from the start of the week persisted as the All Share Index (ASI) declined by 49bps to close at 43,326.89 points while YTD return contracted to 13.3 per cent. Consequently, investors lost N75.8 billion as market capitalisation fell to N15.5 trillion. Today’s drag was largely on account of sustained sell-offs across board with NESTLE (-5.0%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-3.2%) and FBNH (-1.6%) weighing the most on performance. Meanwhile, activity level improved as volume and value traded surged 336.9 per cent and 64.0 per cent to 2.2 billion units and N7.4 billion respectively.

Sector Performance was mixed as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage closed in the red while 2 trended northwards. Leading the losers’ chart was the Consumer Goods index which fell 2.0 per cent following sell pressure in NESTLE (-5.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-3.2%). The Insurance index trailed, down 0.6 per cent on the back of price depreciation in WAPIC (-4.4%) and AIICO (-4.8%). Also, the Banking index fell 0.1 per cent as UBN (-2.4%), DIAMOND (-4.8%) and FIDELITY (-3.2%) all closed southwards. On the flip side, the Industrial Goods index trended 0.3 per cent higher, buoyed by uptick in DANGCEM (+0.4%) while the Oil & Gas index rose 0.6 per cent due to gains in FORTE (+4.9%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved to 0.7x from 0.5x recorded the previous session consequent on 17 stocks advancing against 26 decliners. The top performing stocks were UNITY (+9.4%), FORTE (+4.9%) and ROYALEX (+4.8%) while SKYE (-8.9%), HMARKINS (-5.3%) and NESTLE (-5.0%) were the worst performers. Whilst the bearish performance was in line with expectation, improving market breadth and turnover suggest some investors are taking advantage on the week-long sell off to buy into stocks with attractive valuation. Hence, we expect the ‘Buy the Dip” sentiment to buoy performance in subsequent sessions.

In the NASD OTC Exchange, total Volume and value traded stood at 801,424 units and N15.2m respectively. The SDAFRILAND, SDCSCSPLC and SDNDEP were the only instruments that traded

Market Statistics Thursday, 8th February 2018
Market Cap (N’bn)                                                      15,548.1
Market Cap (US$’bn)                                                         50.8
NSE All-Share Index                                                   43,326.89
Daily Performance %                                                          (0.5)
Week Performance %                                                         (2.5)
YTD Performance %                                                           13.3
Daily Volume (Million)                                                     2,220.9
Daily Value (N’bn)                                                                  7.5
Daily Value (US$’m)                                                             24.5