Equities Market opens the week in the green… NSE ASI up 8bps

The All Share Index (ASI) closed the trading day at 37,974.58 points, adding 8bps to open the week in the green. This marked the 4th consecutive day of a positive close. As a result, YTD return expanded to 41.3 per cent as market cap increased by N10.8 billion to settle at N13.2 trillion. The day’s positive performance was buoyed by buying interest in Consumer Goods bellwethers – NESTLE (+1.2%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%) – and FBNH (+2.5%). However, activity level was mixed as volume traded marginally inched 1.0% higher to 500.2m units while value traded declined 11.4 per cent to N6.4 billion.
Sector performance was mixed with 3 indices trending northwards and the other 2 indices closing in the red. The Consumer Good index appreciated the most, up 0.4 per cent owing to gains in NESTLE (+1.2%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%). Similarly, the Insurance and Industrial Goods Indices followed, rising 0.2 per cent and 0.1 per cent consequent on buying interest in LINKASSURE (+4.8%), AIICO (+1.8%) and DANGCEM (+0.3%). Contrarily, the losers were the Banking and Oil & Gas indices, down 0.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent respectively. The Banking index was dragged by losses in GUARANTY (-0.7%), UBA (-1.9%) and ZENITH (-0.3%) whereas the Oil & Gas index closed lower on account of price depreciations in MOBIL (-4.7%), FORTE (-2.2%) and TOTAL (-0.4%).

Despite the day’s positive close, market breadth weakened to 0.8x (from 1.6x on Friday) as 19 stocks advanced against 24 decliners. The top performing stocks are CADBURY (+10.1%), DIAMONDB (+8.7%) and CAVERTON (+4.9%) while the worst performers include FIDSON (-5.0%), GUINNESS (-5.0%) and CCNN (-4.9%). While we attribute the day’s gain to buying interest in some large cap stocks, we however observed profit taking in mid- and small- cap stocks which had rallied in recent days. Nevertheless, we expect market performance to be determined by year-end rebalancing by institutional investors.

Market Statistics Monday, 4th December 2017
Market Cap (N’bn)                                                                   13,225.3
Market Cap (US$’bn)                                                                      43.2
NSE All-Share Index                                                               37,974.58
Daily Performance %                                                                       0.1
Week Performance %                                                                      1.9
YTD Performance %                                                                      41.3
Daily Volume (Million)                                                                  500.2
Daily Value (N’bn)                                                                            6.4
Daily Value (US$’m)                                                                       20.8