Local Bourse extends downward trend for 5th day… NSE ASI down 38bps

The downward trend of the local bourse was extended into the fifth consecutive day following sell offs in GUARANTY (-1.8%), SEPLAT (-5.0%) and WAPCO (-5.0%). As a result, the All Share Index (ASI) declined 38bps to 41,686.36 points while YTD return contracted to 9.0%. Accordingly, market capitalisation decreased by N57.1bn to N14.9tn. Activity level was however mixed as volume traded advanced 21.8% to 398.2m units while value traded fell 25.7% to N3.9bn. FIDSON (85.1m), AFRINSURE (40.1m) and FBNH (34.9m) were the top traded stocks by volume while GUARANTY (N826.7m), ZENITH (N682.3m) and FIDSON (N424.8m) led by value.

The Oil and Gas index led today’s bearish performance, posting a 2.7% decline on account of price depreciation in SEPLAT (-5.0%). The Industrial Goods index trailed, shedding 2.0% as WAPCO (-5.0%) recorded losses. In related news, DANGCEM released an impressive FY:2017 result, posting a 31.0% increase in Gross revenue to N805.6bn while PBT and PAT inched 60.1% and 43.0% higher to N289.6bn and N204.2bn respectively; dividend of N10.50 was declared for the period. Similarly, sell pressures in NEM (-3.9%), AFRINSURE (-3.6%), GUARANTY (-1.8%) and UBA (-1.3%) drove the negative performance of the Insurance (-1.1%) and Banking (-0.7%) indices . On the flip side, the Consumer Goods index was the only gainer, up 0.1% buoyed by gains in UNILEVER (+5.0%) and NASCON (+3.4%).

Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved marginally to 0.5x from 0.4x recorded yesterday consequent on 19 stocks advancing relative to 31 that declined. The best performing stocks were UNITY (+6.5%), UNILEVER (+5.0%) and TOTAL (+5.0%) while CABDURY (-9.4%), JAPAUL OIL (-9.4%), and MULTITREX (-9.1%) led the laggards. Although market performance was broadly dragged by profit taking in large cap stocks, we observed increased sell offs across small cap stocks. Hence we expect investors to begin to seek for bargain opportunities in trading sessions ahead

Market Statistics Tuesday, 20th March 2018
Market Cap (N’bn)                                       14,912.6
Market Cap (US$’bn)                                         48.7
NSE All-Share Index                                  41,686.36
Daily Performance %                                         (0.4)
Week Performance %                                       (3.2)
YTD Performance %                                          9.0
Daily Volume (Million)                                    398.2
Daily Value (N’bn)                                             3.9
Daily Value (US$’m)                                          12.8