Nigerian equities market opens the week with ₦72.4bn gain

The equities market ended today’s trading session in the green as the All-Share Index (ASI) rose 60bps to close at 24,010.19 points following price accretion in MTNN (+1.4%), WAPCO (+6.1%) and GUARANTY (+1.1%). Consequently, investors gained ₦72.4bn as market capitalisation increased to ₦12.5tn while YTD return moderated to -10.6%. Activity level advanced as volume and value traded rose 49.5% and 19.7% to 331.0m units and ₦2.9bn respectively. The most active stocks by volume were ACCESS (83.6m units) ZENITH (54.9m units), and STERLNBANK (33.6m units) while ZENITH (₦842.9m), ACCESS (₦522.8m) and GUARANTY (₦346.8m) led the value chart.  

Across sectors under our coverage, performance was mixed. The Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices rose 0.9% and 0.8% respectively following gains in WAPCO (+6.1%), BUACEMENT (+0.6%) and MTNN (+1.4%). Price appreciation in GUARANTY (+1.1%) and ACCESS (+2.4%) buoyed performance in the Banking index by 0.5%. Conversely, Consumer Goods index led losers, down 1.4% following sell-offs in NESTLE (-4.3%) and GUINNESS (-2.9%). Similarly, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices dipped 1.1% and 0.1% respectively due to price declines in CORNERSTONE (-6.8%), WAPIC (-6.3%) and OANDO (-0.7%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) advanced to 1.9x from the 1.4x recorded in the previous session as 25 stocks gained relative to 14 losers. The top gainers were OKOMUOIL (+10.0%), NEIMETH (+9.7%) and BOCGAS (+9.6%) while LASACO (-7.4%), JAIZBANK (-6.8%)and CORNERSTONE (-6.8%) were top losers. We expect a mixed performance for the week as the market presents opportunity for bargain hunting and profit taking.

Market Statistics for Monday, 18th May 2020