Buying Interest in Bellwethers Upturns Performance in Local Bourse… ASI Up 32bps

The buying interest in bellwethers – SEPLAT (+6.8%), DANGCEM (+2.2%) and GUARANTY (+0.3%) upturned yesterday’s bearish sentiment as the NSE All Share Index (ASI) appreciated 0.3% to settle at 30,802.90 points. Consequently, the market capitalisation rose N35.8bn to N11.3tn while YTD loss improved to -19.5%. However, activity level was mixed as the volume traded increased by 171.5% to 546.0m units while value traded reduced by 0.2% and to N4.1bn. The top traded stocks by volume were UNIONDAC (274.2m units), ACCESS (61.9m units) and ZENITH (37.3m units) while ZENITH (N838.5m), GUARANTY (N711.8m) and ACCESS (N473.3m) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors was largely bullish as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage trended northwards. The Oil & Gas index appreciated the most, up 3.1% due to bargain hunting in SEPLAT (+6.8%) and CONOIL (+3.7%) while the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices gained 2.6% and 1.1% respectively due to price appreciation in CONTINSURE (+5.1%), LAWUNION (+7.8%), and DANGCEM (+2.2%). On the flip side, the Banking and Consumer Goods indices shed 1.6% and 0.3% respectively due to sell pressures in UBN (-6.7%),  ACCESS (-6.3%), NESTLE (-0.7%), and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-0.6%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) further weakened to 0.8x from 1.3x recorded yesterday as 17 stocks appreciated against 22 decliners. The top performing stocks were NEM (+10.0%), UNITYBNK (+10.0%), and BERGER (+9.8%) while UNIONDAC (-7.7%), UBN (-6.7%) and CCNN (-6.6%) led the laggards. In line with our expectation, we observed some buying interest in bellwethers which drove market performance in today’s trading session. We therefore expect  this bullish performance to be moderated by some profit taking activities particularly in the bellwethers while maintaining a cautious outlook in the near term.

Market Statistics Thursday, 20th December 2018

Market Cap (N’bn)                             11,215.3

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                36.8

NSE All-Share Index                         30,802.90

Daily Performance %                                   0.3

1 Week Performance %                               0.8

YTD Performance %                                  (19.5)

Daily Volume (Million)                                546.0

Daily Value (N’bn)                                           4.1

Daily Value (US$’m)                                      13.4