Bargain hunting drives equities market performance up by 0.01%

 

The equities market closed nearly flat in today’s session, with the All Share Index (ASI) inching lower marginally by 0.01 percent to 40,752.83 basis points.
In addition, investors gained N49.5 billion in value as market capitalization advanced to N14.8 trillion. Today’s bullish performance was largely due to buying interest in Nigerian Breweries (+1.8 percent), Unilever Nigeria (+3.6 percent) and Oando (+5.2 percent). Similarly, activity level strengthened as volume and value traded increased 8.0 percent and 36.0 percent to 378.2 million units and N6.3 billion respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were Guaranty Trust Bank (63.5 million), Diamond Bank (59.7 million) and FBN Holdings (42.8 million) while Guaranty Trust Bank (N2.8 billion), FBN Holdings (N515.1 million) and Flour Miller Nigeria (N474.7 million) topped the chart by value.
Overall sector performance was bearish as all indices under our watch closed in the red save the Consumer Goods index which trended northwards. The Insurance index led laggards down 0.5 percent), following losses in Continental Reinsurance (-4.0 percent). The Industrial Goods and Banking indices trailed closely, depreciating 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent on account of sell offs in Lafarge Africa (-0.9 percent) and UBA (-1.7 percent) respectively while the Oil & Gas index shed 0.2 percent as a result of losses in Eterna (-1.5 percent), 11Plc (-1.2 percent) and Forte Oil (-0.3 percent). On the positive side, the Consumer Goods index appreciated 0.8 percent on the back of bargain hunting in Nigerian Breweries (+1.8 percent) and Unilever Nigeria (+3.6 percent).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) worsened to 0.5x from 1.1x recorded in the preceding session as 14 stocks advanced against 26 that declined. The top performing stocks were Oando (+5.2 percent), Okomu Oil (+5.0 percent) and C&I Leasing (+4.7 percent) while NPF Microfinance Bank (-8.9 percent), Jaiz Bank (-8.0 percent) and Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (-5.0 percent) were the worst performing stocks.