Bargain hunting in Bellwethers drive stock market rebound as ASI up 56bps 

In today’s session, the domestic equities market reversed its bearish performance as gains in FBNH (+6.1%), NESTLE (+2.3%) and UBA (+6.9%) drove the All Share Index (ASI) 56bps higher to 32,381.00 points. As a result, market capitalisation increased by N65.4bn to N11.8tn while YTD return improved to -15.3%. Additionally, activity level strengthened as value and volume traded inched 23.3% and 67.9% to N2.7bn and 269.8m units respectively. ACCESS (N679.8m), ZENITH (N338.4m), and INTBREW (N229.7m) led the most traded stocks by value while ACCESS (84.9m), SKYEBANK (22.9m) and ZENITH (16.4m) were the top traded stocks by volume.

Performance across sectors was largely bullish as 4 of 5 indices under our coverage closed northwards. The Banking index led gainers as bargain hunting in ZENITH (+2.4%) and UBA (+6.9%) drove the index 1.3% higher. Also, the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices rose 0.3% apiece on the back of buying interest in FORTE (+5.3%), ETERNA (+3.3%), NESTLE (+2.3%) and DANGSUGAR (+0.7%). The Industrial index eked out a marginal 2bps gain due to price appreciation in CUTIX (+2.5%). On the flip side, the Insurance index was the lone loser, down 0.2% following sell pressures in UNIVINSURE (-8.0%) and CORNERSTONE (-8.7%).

Investor sentiment improved as market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.5x from 0.8x recorded the previous session as 27 stocks advanced against 18 that declined. The best performers were FIRSTALUM (+10.0%), PRESTIGE (+9.6%) and ROYALEX (+9.5%) while REDSTAREX (-9.1%), CORNERSTONE (-8.7%) and STDINSURE (-8.7%) depreciated the most. The rebound in the market today was in line with our expectation, although we expect this  to be short-lived as sell pressures persist.

Market Statistics Tuesday, 18th September 2018

Market Cap (N’bn)                               11,821.6

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                  38.6

NSE All-Share Index                            32,381.00

Daily Performance %                                     0.6

Week Performance %                                   (3.2)

YTD Performance %                                    (15.3)

Daily Volume (Million)                                   269.8

Daily Value (N’bn)                                             2.7

Daily Value (US$’m)                                          8.7