Nigerian Stock Market: The Bulls Regain Dominance… ASI Up 7.5% w/w

The equities market rebounded from last week’s negative performance with a 7.5% increase in the benchmark index to 36,804.75 points. The strong performance was buoyed by sustained gains on all 5 trading sessions of the week. Investors gained ₦1.3tn as market capitalisation advanced to ₦19.2tn while YTD return improved to 37.1%. Activity level weakened as average volume and value traded declined 16.5% and 15.9% to 378.3m units and ₦3.5bn respectively. The most traded stocks by volume were FBNH (148.8m units), ZENITH (97.2m units) and ACCESS (89.2m units) while ZENITH (₦2.3bn), DANGCEM (₦2.2bn) and GUARANTY (₦1.2bn) led the value chart.

Performance was outstanding across sectors as all 6 indicators under our coverage gained w/w. The Insurance and AFR-ICT indices recorded sublime performance, gaining 13.4% and 12.9% w/w respectively following price appreciation in MANSARD (+37.3%), AIICO (+19.0%) and AIRTELAF (+21.0%). Trailing, the Industrial Goods and Banking indicators advanced 7.7% and 5.1% w/w respectively following gains in DANGCEM (+14.5%), ZENITH (+9.3%) and ACCESS (+6.2%). Lastly, the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices closed 3.1% and 1.3% w/w higher respectively, supported by gains in FLOURMILL (+5.3%) and OANDO (+9.4%). 

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) improved to 3.4x from 0.3x last week as 51 stocks gained against 15 losers. FTNCOCOA (+40.9%), MANSARD (+37.3%) and AIRTELAF (+21.0%) led the top gainers while NEM (-47.2%), OMATEK (-16.7%) and INTBREW (-12.7%) led the decliners. We anticipate a sustained bullish performance in the coming week as investors position in undervalued stocks.