Zenith, Gtbank, DANCEM push up Nigerian Stock Market index

The domestic bourse opened the week positive as buying interest in DANGCEM (+2.8%), GUARANTY (+3.0%) and ZENITH (+3.9%) pulled the All-Share Index (ASI) up 138bps to 27,339.68 points. Consequently, market capitalisation rose ₦179.1bn to close at ₦13.2tn. Activity level was mixed as volume traded fell by 14.5% to 520.4m units while value traded increased by 42.3% to ₦5.4bn. The top traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (97.1m units), UNIVINSURE (70.0m units) and UBA (62.7m units) while ZENITH (₦1.9bn), SEPLAT (₦670.0m) and GUARANTY (₦586.4m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Sector performance was bullish as only the AFR-ICT (-0.5%) index of the 6 indices under our coverage lost due to price weakness in MTNN (-0.1%). The Banking index led gainers with a 3.9% gain consequent on buying interest in GUARANTY (+3.0%) and ZENITH (+3.9%). Trailing, the Industrial Goods (+1.6%) and Insurance (+0.8%) indices edged higher on the back of gains in DANGCEM (+2.8%) and WAPCO (+0.7%) as well as LASACO (+8.0%) and WAPIC (+2.9%). Similarly, price appreciation in DANGSUGAR (+6.0%), FLOURMILLS (+6.3%), OANDO (+4.1%) and CONOIL (+2.2%) pushed the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices 0.5% and 0.4% higher respectively. 

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 2.3x from the 1.5x recorded on the previous trading day as 30 stocks gained as opposed to 13 losers. The best performing stocks for the day 

were FCMB (+10.0%), CORNERSTONE (+9.4%) and UNITY (+9.0%) while PZ (-9.7%), UNIONDAC (-9.1%) and NIGERINS (-9.1%) lost the most. Following the recent trend in the market, we expect the market to continue its gaining streak this week.

Market Statistics for Monday, 6th January 2020