Stock market halts Bullish run… ASI down 0.1%

Away from our expectation, the domestic equities market halted its bullish run as the NGX ASI shed 0.1% to 43,859.30 points today, following sell-pressure on bellwether manufacturing stocks – NESTLE (-7.8%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-5.2%), and DANGCEM (-0.4%). As a result, YTD return moderated to 2.7% while market capitalisation fell ₦20.4bn to ₦23.6tn. Trading activity worsened as volume and value traded fell 5.6% and 21.7% respectively to 294.5m units and ₦6.8bn. TRANSCORP (58.4m units), BUAFOODS (51.5m units), and FBNH (16.5m units) led by volume while BUAFOODS (₦3.3bn), SEPLAT (₦596.9m), and MTNN (₦381.5m) led by value.

Across sectors within our coverage, performance was mixed as 3 out of 6 indices lost. Leading laggards, the Consumer Goods index slid 4.8% on sell-offs in NESTLE (-7.8%), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (-5.2%), and UNILEVER (-4.3%). In the same vein, the Insurance and Industrial Goods indices shed 2.1% and 0.3% respectively due to losses in AIICO (-3.6%), MANSARD (-3.0%), DANGCEM (-0.4%), and WAPCO (-1.0%). On the other hand, the Oil & Gas index gained 1.0% following price uptick in OANDO (+2.8%) and ETERNA (+5.1%). Similarly, gains in UBN (+4.6%), ZENITH (+0.2%), and MTNN (+0.3%) buoyed performance in the Banking and AFR-ICT indices, up 0.2% and 0.1% respectively.

Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio), weakened further to 0.7x from 1.5x as 17 stocks gained against 26 laggards. BUAFOODS (+10.0%), ETERNA (+5.1%), and UBN (+4.6%) led gainers while MBENEFIT (-10.0%), BERGER (-9.9%), and UPDCREIT (-8.1%) led decliners. In the next trading session, we expect that today’s bearish performance would be sustained on weakened investor sentiment.

Market Statistics for Tuesday, 11th January 2022