Mobil, Dangote cement push up NSE indices

Blue chips stocks posted price appreciation on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) with the market capitalisation rising by N126 billion. Mobil Oil led the gainers’ table, gaining N13.50 to close at N192 per share. Dangote Cement followed with a gain of N5 to close at N260, while International Breweries garnered N2.50 to close at N54 per share. Lafarge Africa appreciated by N1.25 to close at N43.65, while Unilever increased by 80k to close at N53.90 per share. Consequently, the market capitalisation rose by 0.86 per cent or N126 billion to close at N14.754 trillion compared to N14.628 trillion on Tuesday.

In the same vein, the All-Share Index which opened at 40,499.04, inched 347.20 points or 0.86 per cent to close at 40,846.24. Despite improved market performance, activity level remained mixed as volume traded grew 5.4 per cent to 367.2 million units while value traded fell 26.6 per cent to N5.3 billion. The top traded stocks by volume were ZENITH (100.6m), SKYE (43.0m) and ACCESS (24.0m) while ZENITH (N2.7bn), GUARANTY (N908.7m) and ACCESS (N283.2m) were top traded stocks by value.

The performance across Sectors was largely bullish as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage gained while 2 declined. The Industrial Goods index topped the gainers chart, up 2.0 per cent on account of buying interest in DANGCEM (+2.0%) and WAPCO (+3.0%) while the Oil & Gas index trailed, 0.8 per cent higher largely due to price appreciation in 11PLC (+8.0%). Lastly, the Consumer Goods index closed up 0.7% as bargain hunting in INTBREW (+4.9%) and GUINNESS (+0.5%) drove the positive performance of the index. On the other hand, the Insurance index (-0.7%) led decliners as losses in CONTINSURE (-3.2%) and NEM (-2.7%) dragged the index lower while the Banking index lost 0.3% due to sell-offs in UBN (-3.0%) and UBA (-0.9%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.4x consequent on 27 stocks advancing against 19 stocks that declined. LEARNAFRICA (+8.2%), UNITY (+5.0%) and 11PLC (+5.0%) were the top performing stocks, while CILEASING (-6.8%), REDSTAREX (-4.9%) and BETAGLAS (-4.9%) led laggards today. Following the consecutive bullish performance recorded, we anticipate this trend to continue in subsequent trading sessions as attractive entry opportunities remain in the market.

Market Statistics Wednesday, 11th April 2018

Market Cap (N’bn)                                            14,754.3

Market Cap (US$’bn)                                               48.2

NSE All-Share Index                                        40,846.24

Daily Performance %                                                  0.9

Week Performance %                                                  0.2

YTD Performance %                                                    6.8

Daily Volume (Million)                                               367.2

Daily Value (N’bn)                                                          5.3

Daily Value (US$’m)                                                     17.4