The equities market closed in the green today as All Share index advanced 140bps to 24,143.37 points due to gains in GUARANTY (+9.3%), ZENITH (+6.4%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+10.0%). Consequently, investors gained ₦174.1bn as market capitalisation rose to ₦12.6tn while YTD loss eased to -10.1%. Activity level was mixed as volume traded rose 24.0% to 426.6m units and value traded fell 3.5% to ₦4.1bn. The most active stocks by volume were FBNH (91.9m units), ZENITH (63.4m units) and ACCESS (55.9m units) while GUARANTY (₦1.0bn), ZENITH (₦994.8m) and FBNH (₦448.1m) led the value chart.
Performance across sectors was bullish as all indices that we cover gained save the AFR-ICT index which closed flat. The Banking and Insurance indices led gainers, up 5.3% and 3.7% respectively following price appreciation in GUARANTY (+9.3%), ZENITH (+6.4%), NEM (+9.1%) and CORNERSTONE (+9.3%). In the same vein, the Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices appreciated 2.0% and 1.3% respectively on the back of gains in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+10.0%), FLOURMILL (+6.3%), OANDO (+6.3%) and ARDOVA (+9.8%). Lastly, the Industrial Goods index also gained 64bps due to sustained buying interest in WAPCO (+4.2%) and DANGCEM (+0.6%).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) surged to 8.8x from the 4.1x recorded in the previous session as 35 stocks gained relative to 4 losers. The top gainers were NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+10.0%), CHIPLC (+10.0%) and ARDOVA (+9.8%) while CILEASING (-6.0%), UACN (-3.5%) and UNIONDAC (-3.1%) were top losers. We expect investors to continue to cherry-pick fundamentally sound stocks in the market.
Corporate Actions
AXA Mansard Plc (Audited FY:2019 Result): Gross Premium Written rose 28.6% Y-o-Y to ₦43.6bn from ₦33.9bn in FY:2018 while the company recorded profit after tax of ₦2.9bn, up 17.2% from ₦2.5bn in FY:2018.
Market Statistics for Wednesday, 6th May 2020
| Market Cap (N’bn) | 12,582.4 |
| Market Cap (US$’bn) | 35.0 |
| NSE All-Share Index | 24,143.37 |
| Daily Performance % | 1.4 |
| WTD Performance % | 4.9 |
| MTD Performance % | 4.9 |
| QTD Performance % | 13.3 |
| YTD Performance % | (10.1) |
| Daily Volume (Million) | 426.6 |
| Daily Value (N’bn) | 4.1 |
| Daily Value (US$’m) | 11.4 |
Source: Afrinvest
