Local Bourse Opens the Week on a Negative Note…ASI Down 26bps

In today’s trading session, the equities market reversed its bullish run shedding 26bps to settle at 31,344.24 due to losses in UBA (-4.6%), SEPLAT (-3.7%) and GUARANTY (-0.7%). Consequently, market capitalization shed N30.7bn to settle at N11.7tn while YTD loss worsened to -0.3%. In line with the  bearish performance, activity level tapered as average volume and value traded declined 46.7% and 41.4% to 219.6m units and N1.8bn respectively. The top traded stocks  by volume were  FIDELITY (23.8m units), UBA (21.9m units) and DIAMOND (21.2m units) while GUARANTY (N487.9m), ZENITH (N399.3m) and UBA(N162.0m) were the top traded by value.

Performance across sectors was largely bearish as 4 of 5 indices under our coverage closed in the red. The Insurance index declined the most shedding 1.1% on account of selloffs in AIICO (-0.4%) and WAPIC (-0.2%). This was closely followed by the Banking and Oil & Gas indices down 0.5% and 0.4% respectively dragged by losses in UBA (-4.6%), GUARANTY (-0.7%) and SEPLAT (-3.7%). The Consumer Goods index declined 0.3% on the back of sell pressure in DANGSUGAR (-1.4%) and DANGFLOUR (-4.6%). On the positive side, the Industrial Goods index marginally advanced by 1bp on account of gains recorded in BETAGLASS (+1.2%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.4x from 4.5x recorded last Friday as 10 stocks advanced against 28 decliners. The best performing stocks were NPFMCRFB (+9.6%), UNIONDAC (+7.4%) and OANDO (+5.2%) while BERGER (-9.7%), ROYALEX (-6.5%) and AGLEVENT (-6.5%) led laggards. In line with our expectation, we experienced some profit taking in today’s trading session. While we maintain a bearish outlook in the near term, we do not rule out the possibility of bargain hunting in fundamentally sound stocks.

Market Statistics Monday, 28th January 2019

Market Cap (N’bn)                                11,688.4

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                  38.2

NSE All-Share Index                           31,344.24

Daily Performance %                                  (0.3)

1 Week Performance %                               2.0

YTD Performance %                                   (0.3)

Daily Volume (Million)                               219.7

Daily Value (N’bn)                                         1.8

Daily Value (US$’m)                                     6.0

Afrinvest