Nigerian Equities Market records gain… ASI Up 25bps

Buying interest in the local bourse pushed the benchmark index northward as the ASI rose 25bps to settle at 26,310.77 points while YTD loss eased to -16.3%. Price appreciation in DANGCEM (+2.1%), ACCESS (+2.0%) and UACN (+7.5%) buoyed market performance. Consequently, investors gained N32.3bn as market capitalisation advanced to N12.8tn. However, activity level weakened as volume and value traded fell 41.5% and 34.6% to 156.8m units and N1.8bn respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were MULTIVERSE (25.0m units), STERLNBANK (19.5m units) and ACCESS (18.7m units) while the top traded stocks by value were DANGCEM (N569.9m), GUARANTY (N254.2m) and MTNN (N251.8m).

Performance across sectors was bearish as 3 of 6 indices ended the trading day in red. The Industrial Goods index led laggards, shedding 0.7% due to a loss in WAPCO (-6.6%) while sell-offs in FLOURMILL (-1.8%) and CHAMPION (-0.1%) led to a decline in the Consumer Goods index by 32bps. In the same vein, the Insurance index fell 0.1% following sell pressures in AIICO (-2.9%) and LASACO (-3.9%). On the flip side, the Banking index led the gainers with 0.1% stemming from price appreciation in ACCESS (+2.0%) while gains in MTNN (+0.1%) put the AFRI-ICT index in the positive region. Finally, the Oil & Gas index closed flat.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) declined to 0.7x from 1.3x recorded on Tuesday as 8 stocks gained against 11 that lost. The top gainers today were UPL (+10.0%), LAWUNION (+8.9%) and UACN (+7.5%) while the top losers were AFROMEDIA (-9.8%), FLOURMILL (-9.7%) and WEMABANK (-6.7%). We maintain our bearish outlook for the rest of the week in the absence of any major market drivers. However, we see opportunities for bargain hunting in stocks with sound fundamentals.

Market Statistics Wednesday, 30th October 2019 

Source: Afrinvest