The Nigerian equities market after an impressive rally last week has been able to ride out the wave of the OPEC cuts, posting marginal gains on Monday. Today’s results are primarily ascribed to sell-offs in Industrial Goods and Banking equities. As such, the All Share Index gained 1bp to close at 25,743.03.
Results at the close of trade showed that the major equities which maintained the essentially neutral performance today were FORTE (+10.2%), ZENITH (+2.3%) and NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.4%).
Despite market capitalisation gaining N758.6m to settle at N8.9tn, investor sentiment seems to have taken a turn from last week as market breadth stood at 0.7x on the back of fifteen stocks advancing against twenty three declining. MOBIL (+10.2%) led the fifteen advancers, trailed by FORTE (+10.2%) and PORTPAINT (+9.3%). As for the twenty three decliners, NAHCO (-4.9%) led the squad, trailed by CCNN (-4.9%) and UAC-PROP (-4.7%).
As for activity levels, results were mixed as volume traded fell 69.6% to 175.1m units while value traded rose 133.2% to N3.1bn. With investment mangers repositioning their portfolios, we could construe today’s results as reflecting investors’ apathy for equities, regardless of attractive valuation.
Across sectors, performance was mixed. Oil & Gas index improved by 3.6%, spurred by MOBIL (+10.2%) and FORTE (+10.2%) and Consumer Goods climbed 5bps similarly, on account of gains in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+1.4%). On the other hand, the Industrial Good posted the greatest decline of 1.5% while Insurance (-1.2%) and Banking (-0.5%) pared in that order.
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