Nigerian Equities market slips further… ASI down 49bps

Trading activity on the domestic exchange closed negatively today, as the All-Share Index fell further by 49bps to close at 38,044.58 points following price decline in DANGCEM (-2.9%), GUARANTY (-1.2%), and UACN (-2.2%). Consequently, YTD loss worsened to -5.5% while market capitalisation declined by ₦98.6bn to settle at ₦19.8tn. Trading activity was mixed as volume traded rose by 5.5% to 214.2m units while value traded fell by 26.4% to ₦1.3bn. The most traded stocks by volume were SOVERENINS (27.2m units), MBENEFIT (17.2m units), and UACN (15.7m units) while GUARANTY (₦226.3m), UACN (₦174.3m), and ZENITH (₦134.2m) led by value.

Across sectors under our coverage, performance was bearish as 4 indices lost, 1 gained and 1 closed flat. The Oil & Gas and Industrial Goods indices lost 1.1% apiece, following price decline in MRS (-5.0%) and DANGCEM (-2.9%). The Banking and Insurance indices lost 0.4% and 0.3% respectively, due to sell-offs in GUARANTY (-1.2%), ETI (-0.1%), and WAPIC (-5.7%). Conversely, the Consumer Goods index gained 0.1% driven by price uptick in CHIPLC (+6.4%) and FLOURMILL (+0.2%). However, the AFRI-ICT index closed flat.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio), weakened to 0.8x from 1.4x in the last trading session as 16 stocks advanced while 21 declined. MBENEFIT (+7.3%), REGALINS (+7.1%) and CUTIX (+7.1%) led gainers while SOVERENINS (-10.0), ABCTRANS (-8.1%) and ACADEMY (-7.7%) led decliners. We expect the market to close the week in the negative region.

Market Statistics for Thursday, 27th May 2021