… All share index down 0.1%
The equities market ended last week in the red as the All Share Index (ASI) declined by 0.1 per cent Week-on-Week (W-o-W) to 27,675.04 points while Year-to-Date (YTD) loss settled at -11.9 per cent.
Consequently, market capitalisation fell by N11.5 billion to N13.5 trillion. Afrinvest analysts attributed the decline to losses sustained in LEARNAFRICA (-19.4 per cent), UACPROP (-18.3 per cent) and NPFMCRFB (-12.0 per cent) as well as the bearish run on three out of five trading sessions of the week. Accordingly, activity level waned as average volume and value fell 13.5 per cent and 11.0 per cent to 219.3 million units and N3.3 billion respectively.
The top traded stocks by volume were ACCESS (217.6 million units), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (118.0 million units) and FBNH (73.6 million units) while NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N6.2 billion), NESTLE (N1.8 billion) and ACCESS (N1.6 billion) led by value.
The first three trading days of the week ended bearish as the ASI fell 0.2 per cent, 1.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively. However, on Thursday and Friday, the market gained 109bps and 35 basis points (bps) respectively due to price appreciation in NESTLE, SEPLAT, ACCESS, AIRTELAFRICA and WAPCO.
Sector performance was largely bullish as four of six indices under our coverage gained W-o-W. Gains in SEPLAT (+21.0 per cent), TOTAL (+20.0 per cent), NESTLE (+11.1 per cent) and INTBREW (+5.0 per cent) buoyed the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices up 11.6 per cent and 5.0 per cent respectively W-o-W. The Insurance and AFR-ICT indices also advanced 3.0 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively following buying interest in CONTINSURE (20.4 per cent), NEM (7.0 per cent), AIRTELAFRICA (8.6 per cent) and NCR (10.0 per cent). On the flip side, the Industrial and Banking indices lost 1.8 per cent and 1.6 per cent W-o-W respectively on the back of price depreciation in CCNN (9.9 per cent), STANBIC (11.3 per cent) and STERLING (8.3 per cent).
Investor sentiment weakened as market breadth (advance/decline ratio) declined to 0.5x as 20 tickers gained against 40 that lost. SEPLAT (21.0 per cent), CONTINSURE(20.4 per cent) and TOTAL (20.0 per cent) led the gainers while LEARNAFRICA (19.4 per cent), UACPROP (-18.3 per cent) and NPFMCRFB (12.0 per cent) led losers. We believe the bearish sentiment in the market would persist as investors maintain a risk-off approach towards equities.
