DANGCEM drives equities market higher…NSE ASI up 1.2%

Nigeria’s Stock Exchange All Share Index (ASI) hit new two-year highs on Tuesday, led by banking shares after the CBN said it was committed to opening up the foreign exchange market to investors.

The index rose 2.54 per cent, hurdling the 35,000-point level to post its second consecutive day of gains. The banking index jumped 2.62 per cent.
Traders said prices were supported by buying on an optimistic outlook for half-year company results. Dangote Cement, which accounts for a third of total market capitalisation, gained 4.9 percent, while Forte Oil rose 9.39 percent and United Bank for Africa climbed the maximum of 10 percent.

Other gainers included Union Bank, up 9.21 per cent, Flour Mills of Nigeria up 4.98 per cent, Oando up 4.67 per cent and Fidelity Bank up 4.76 per cent. Market performance was bolstered by appreciation in DANGCEM (+4.9%), UBA (+10.2%), ZENITH (+3.2%) and STANBIC (+5.0%). In turn, investors gained N142.3bn as market capitalization settled at N12.1tn. However, activity level waned as volume and value traded fell 1.8 % and 37.7% to 288.6m units and N2.5bn respectively.

Performance across sectors
Performance across sectors was bullish as all indices trended northwards. The Industrial Goods sector advanced the most, up 2.9% on the back of gains in DANGCEM (+4.9%) and WAPCO (+1.3%) while positive sentiment towards UBA (+10.2%) and ZENITH (+3.2%) drove the Banking index 2.6% higher. Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices rose 1.8% and 0.6% due to upticks in FORTE (+9.4%) and MANSARD (+5.0%) respectively. Appreciation in NESTLE (+0.9%) drove the Consumer Goods index 0.1% higher.

Investor sentiment strengthens
Investor sentiment as reflected by the market breadth (advancers/decliner’s ratio) strengthened to 1.5x (against 1.0x recorded yesterday) – 27 stocks advanced while 18 declined. The best performing stocks were UBA (+10.2%), MAYBAKER (+10.0%) and FORTE (+9.4%) while UNITYBNK (-9.0%), MORRISON (-8.9%) and FIRSTALUM (-5.0%) declined the most. We expect investor sentiment to remain largely driven by the expectations of positive H1:2017 corporate earnings releases. However, we do not rule out the possibility of some profit taking following the sustained rally.

Market Statistics Tuesday, 25th July 2017
Market Cap (N’bn)                                            12, 085.3
Market Cap (US$’bn)                                               39.5
NSE All-Share Index                                         35,065.5
Daily Performance %                                                 1.2
Week Performance %                                                4.9
YTD Performance %                                                 30.5
Daily Volume (Million)                                              288.6
Daily Value (N’bn)                                                        2.5
Daily Value (US$’m)                                                     8.0