Bearish Pressure Persists into the Fourth Consecutive Session… ASI down 0.1%

Today, the All Share Index (ASI) shed 9bps to settle at 36,299.82 points while YTD loss worsened to -5.1 per cent, lowest since 5th October 2017, as bearish sentiments in the local bourse persisted into the fourth consecutive trading session. Consequently, investors lost N12.4 billion as market capitalisation declined to N13.2 trillion. Today’s negative performance is traceable to continuous sell-offs in GUARANTY (-0.4%), UBA (-1.0%) and OANDO (-4.4%). Activity level also weakened as volume and value traded declined 54.1 per cent and 67.5 per cent to 113.9 million units and N0.7 billion respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were UBA (21.4m), SOVRENINS (14.1m) and TRANSCORP (8.4m) while UBA (N205.2m), ZENITH (N186.6m) and FBNH (N54.1m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Across sectors, performance was bearish as all 5 indices under our coverage trended southwards. The Oil & Gas index led losers for the second consecutive day, down 1.0%, following profit taking in TOTAL (-2.7%) and ETERNA (-0.8%). Similarly, the Banking and Insurance indices lost 0.2 per cent apiece as we saw successive sell-offs in GUARANTY (-0.4%), UBA (-1.0%), MBENEFITS (-9.7%) and AIICO (-1.4%) drag both indices. Furthermore, the Consumer Goods index lost 0.1 per cent on the back of sell pressures in CHAMPION (-3.1%) and HONYFLOUR (-1.7%) while the Industrial Goods index shed 3bps arising from price depreciation in CUTIX (-5.9%) which neutralised gains in CCNN (+8.4%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) advanced to 1.2x from 1.1x recorded in the preceding session as 19 stocks advanced compared to 16 that declined. The top performing stocks were UNITY (+9.3%), SOVRENINS (+8.7%) and NEIMETH (+8.5%) while MBENEFIT (-9.7%), NSLTECH (-9.1%) and UNIONDAC (-7.7%) were the worst performing stocks. Today, we noticed weak activity level in the market as well as increased trading activity in penny stocks, indicating waning investor interest in bellwethers given their weak H1:2018 earnings. We project a further bearish performance tomorrow as the Relative Strength Index – currently at 34.75 – breaches the oversold threshold.

Market Statistics Wednesday, 8th August 2018

Market Cap (N’bn)                                       13,249.5

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                          43.3

NSE All-Share Index                                     36,299.82

Daily Performance %                                            (0.1)

Week Performance %                                           (0.9)

YTD Performance %                                             (5.1)

Daily Volume (Million)                                          113.9

Daily Value (N’bn)                                                    0.7

Daily Value (US$’m)                                                2.4

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