Nigerian Bourse Closes Lower …NSE ASI down 1.9%

The Nigerian equities market extended Tuesday’s negative close as the All Share Index (ASI) depreciated 1.9 per cent to settle at 24,056.12 points. Also, market capitalisation contracted by N157.8billion to close at N8.3trillion. Market performance was driven by further decline in bellwethers such as DANGCEM (-4.2%), NESTLE (-2.6%) and GUARANTY (-2.9%). Nevertheless, Market activity was mixed as volume traded rose 15.4% to close at 335m units, while value traded declined -32.2%, closing at N2.0bn.

Mixed Performance across Sectors
The Industrial and Consumer Goods indices further shed 2.3% and 1.8% respectively as sell pressure in DANGCEM (-4.2%), NESTLE (-2.6%), GUINNESS (-4.5%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-1.0%) persisted. Depreciations in GUARANTY (-2.9%) and ZENITH (-1.6%) also dragged the Banking index lower as it shed 0.9%. However, the Oil & Gas and Insurance indices appreciated 0.7% and 0.1% owing to price appreciation in SEPLAT, NEM and CUSTODIAN as they gained 5.0%, 4.2% and 0.5% respectively.
Market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) further weakened today closing at 0.4x (relative to 0.8x yesterday), as 12 stocks advanced against 27 declining stocks. The top gainers were SEPLAT (+5.0%), NPFMCRFBK (+4.9%) and NAHCO (+3.7%) while the top losers were NNFM (-9.5%), UNILEVER (-5.0%) and LEARNAFRICA (-4.9%). As observed in the last 2 trading sessions, we are of the view that the market may further shed points in sessions ahead as active traders take profit following 6 days of consecutive gains. Nonetheless, we expect full year earnings declarations to also drive performance in the interim

Market Statistics Wednesday, 17th February, 2016
Market Cap                           (N’bn)  8,273.3
Market Cap                           (US$’bn) 41.6
NSE All-Share Index            24,056.12
Daily Performance %           (1.9)
1 Week Performance           % (0.3)
YTD Performance               % (16.0)
Daily Volume (Million)        335.6
Daily Value                           (N’bn) 2.0
Daily Value                           (US$’m) 9.8