Sustained bargain hunting lifts share prices at NSE

Trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange extended its recovery to the second consecutive session as bargain hunting in bellwethers continues to drive performance. As a result, the NSE All Share Index (ASI) rose 2.5 per cent to settle at 37,854.92 points while YTD return improved – although still negative – to -1.0 per cent. The bullish performance recorded in today’s session was largely due to gains in DANGCEM (+2.2%), GUARANTY (+4.0%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+5.0%). 

Accordingly, investors gained N328.8 billion in value as market capitalisation improved to N13.7 trillion. Activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 8.0% to N339.7m units while value traded weakened, down 15.2 per cent to N6.0 billion. The top traded stocks by volume were ACCESS (133.1m), GUARANTY (39.3m) and UBA (23.2m) while GUARANTY (N1.6bn), ACCESS (N1.4bn) and DANGCEM (N911.2m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Sector performance was mostly bullish as 4 of the 5 indices under our watch closed in the green. The Industrial Goods and Banking indices trended northwards, up 3.2% apiece due to bargain hunting in DANGCEM (+2.2%), WAPCO (+5.0%), GUARANTY (+4.0%) and ZENITH (+4.0%). The Consumer Goods index followed closely, up 2.7% on the back of gains in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+5.0%) and INTBREW (+7.7%) while the Insurance index closed 0.2 per cent higher as a result of buying interest in WAPIC (+4.3%) and MBENEFIT (+2.6%). On the other hand, the Oil & Gas index emerged the lone loser shedding 0.6 per cent on account of losses in TOTAL (-4.3%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 2.6x from 1.0x in the prior session as 39 stocks advanced against 15 decliners. OANDO (+9.8%), INTBREW (+7.7%) and DANGSUGAR (+6.4%) were the top performing stocks today while HMARKINS (-6.7%), ROYALEX (-5.9%) and UACN (-4.8%) were the worst performers. In line with our expectations, today’s performance was largely driven by bargain hunting in large cap value stocks and we believe this will remain a key driver in the near term.

Market Statistics Tuesday, 5th June 2018

Market Cap (N’bn)                               13,712.2

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                 44.8

NSE All-Share Index                          37,854.92

Daily Performance %                                  2.5

Week Performance %                               (1.9)

YTD Performance %                                 (1.0)

Daily Volume (Million)                             339.7

Daily Value (N’bn)                                       6.0

Daily Value (US$’m)                                 19.5