Profit taking drags the local bourse Southwards… NSE ASI down 77bps

The equities market closed southwards for the third consecutive trading day as the All Share Index  (ASI) shed 77bps to settle at 43,538.16 points while YTD return further moderated to 13.8 per cent. Consequently, market capitalisation fell by N121.5 billion to settle at N15.6trillion. Today’s negative close can be largely attributed to sell pressure across board with market bellwethers – DANGCEM (-2.2%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-2.0%) and STANBIC (-3.5%) weighing the most on performance. Also, activity level softened as volume and value traded declined 29.1 per cent and 6.9 per cent to 508.3 million units and N4.5 billion respectively.

Performance across sectors was largely bearish as all indices closed in the red save the Banking index which trended 0.6 per cent northwards following gains in ZENITH (+2.6%) and UBA (+1.2%). The Industrial Goods index led laggards, as losses in DANGCEM (-2.2%) dragged the index 1.1 per cent lower. Similarly, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices lost 0.8 per cent apiece, following price depreciation in AIICO (-4.5%), NEM (-3.2%), MOBIL (-5.0%) and TOTAL (-0.4%). Also, the Consumer Goods index slid 0.3 per cent as FLOURMILL (-0.6%) and DANGFLOUR (-0.6%) closed the day in the red.

Investor sentiment as measured by market breath (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 0.5x from 0.4x recorded in the previous session as 18 stocks advanced against 40 decliners. The top performing stocks were CAVERTON (+9.7%), LINKASSURE (+6.8%) and LASACO (+5.9%) while UNIC (-9.5%), SKYE (-8.9%) and WEMA (-8.8%) were the worst performers. Against the backdrop of sustained profit taking since the start of the week, we expect performance in subsequent trading sessions to remain negative. However, in light of lower pricing on fundamentally sound stocks we also anticipate more activity in the coming week as investors seek bargain opportunities

Market Statistics Wednesday, 7th February 2018
Market Cap (N’bn)                                                     15,623.9
Market Cap (US$’bn)                                                        51.0
NSE All-Share Index                                                 43,538.16
Daily Performance %                                                        (0.8)
Week Performance %                                                       (1.8)
YTD Performance %                                                         13.8
Daily Volume (Million)                                                      508.3
Daily Value (N’bn)                                                                4.6
Daily Value (US$’m)                                                           14.9