In the stock market last week, equities performance closed bullish on the back of improved investors sentiments. In the week, the local bourse recorded a positive performance despite losses on 3 of 4 trading days, with the All Share Index (ASI) increasing 0.6% week on week to 31,069.37 points.
Accordingly, market capitalisation rose N82.0 billion to N13.7 trillion while year to date (YTD) loss improved to -1.1% from -1.7% in the previous week. However, activity level declined as average volume and value traded weakened by 20.5% and 62.0% to settle at 212.9 million units and N2.7 billion respectively.
Analysts at Afrinvest suspect that the marked decline may be attributed to the public holiday on Wednesday. The top traded stocks by volume were UBA (126 million units), ACCESS (112.9 million units) and ZENITH (111.1 million units) while MTNN (N4.9 billion), GUARANTY (N3.3 billion) and ZENITH (N2.2 billion) led the top traded stocks by value.
At the beginning of the week, profit-taking activities in MTNN, DANGCEM and UBN pulled the ASI down by 2.2%. On Tuesday, the local bourse reversed its 2-day bearish streak as the index rose by 3.7% on the back of price appreciation in DANGCEM, ZENITH and GUARANTY. However, after the holiday, sell-offs in DANGCEM, GUARANTY and ETI partially reversed gains as the index closed lower by 0.2% on Thursday. Finally, the index closed the week lower by 59 bps on Friday following sell pressures in NIGERIAN BREWERIES, ZENITH and UBA.
Overall sector performance was bullish as 5 out of 6 indices under Afrinvest analysts coverage appreciated week on week. The Banking index recorded the largest gain, up 3.9% due to gains in STERLING (+11.1%) and ETI (+10.9%).
In the same vein, buying interest in MANSARD(+10%) and LAWUNION (+9.1%) drove the Insurance index higher by 3.3% W-o-W while the Oil and Gas index gained 2.1% W-o-W as investors took position in SEPLAT (+5.8%).
The Consumer Goods Index appreciated 1.3% W-o-W due to increased buying interest in DANGFLOUR (+4.7%) and NESTLE (+3.6%) while the Industrial Goods Index gained 1.0% due to gains in CCNN (+7.1%). On the flipside, the AFR-ICT index was down by 2.5% W-o-W due to a decline in MTNN (-2.5%)
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline) ratio strengthened to 1.7x from 0.7x recorded last Friday as 35 stocks advanced against 21 that declined. The top performing stocks this week were CHAMS (+15.2%), STERLING (+11.1%) and ETI (+10.9%) while BERGER (-9.5%), RTBRISCO (-9.4%) and ETERNA (-8.7%) led top losers. Following this week’s performance and improved investor sentiment, we anticipate a bearish performance next week in the absence of any major market catalyst.
