Industrial goods that are listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) have posted the worst performance among the equities quoted on the main board, with the Industrial Index returning -37.73 percent as at December 28, 2018. This is the worst performance recorded by any sectoral index on the NSE thus far this year.
The equity components of the Industrial Index include Berger Paints, Beta Glass, CAP, CCNN and Cutix. Others are First Aluminium, Meyer, Portland Paints, Dangote Cement and Lafarge WAPCO. While the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) is the best performing stock on the Nigerian bourse, Lafarge Wapco is the worst performing stock.
As at the close of business last Friday, the share price of CCNN closed at N19.95, translating to 110 percent price appreciation year to date. On the contrary, Lafarge Wacpo and Dangote Cement, both of which control about 40 percent market capitalisation, recorded -20.4 percent and -72.2 percent respectively. Year to date, Berger Paints rose by 1.3 percent; CAP,2.5 percent while Cutix, -11.4 percent; First Aluminium, 28 percent; Meyer, -15.7 percent are the laggards. By implication, the share prices of heavyweights such as Dangote Cement and Lafarge Wapco posted negative returns in the outgoing year, thus worsened the performance of the industrial index.
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The NSE AseM Index, which captures the performances of stocks which do not have the qualities to be considered for listing on the main board, recorded the second worst performance in 2018, posting -26.99 year to date.
Also, the NSE Consumer Goods Index returned -24.35 percent YTD, due to 4.9 percent depreciation in the share price of Nestle,39.2 percent YTD decline in the share price of Nigerian Breweries; while International Breweries, Dangote Sugar, Flour Mills and Unilever shed 44 percent; 23.8 percent; 24.3 percent and 9.8 percent from their prices year to date. The aforementioned stocks account for about 70 percent of the market capitalisation of the NSE Consumer Goods Index.
Next in performance is the NSE 30 Index, which Dangote Cement, Wapco, Nestle, Oando,Access Bank, Guinness and International Breweries, among others returned -19.73 percent year to date. The NSE Corporate Governance Index was down year to date to 18.09 percent. With Diamond and Access banks merger reaching advanced stage, the index will be among the top sectoral indexes that will witness adjustment in the New Year.
The only sub sectoral index that recorded below single digit returns was the NSE Insurance Index. It closed last Friday at -9.62 percent.
Meanwhile, Vitafoam has released its audited annual financial statement for the period ended September 30,2018. The foam manufacturing giant announced a profit after tax of N601.9 million for the period, translating to a significant leap over loss after tax of N127.7 million the firm announced in similar period in 2017.
Revenue grew by 10 percent from N17.7 billion in 2017 to N19.5 billion in 2018. Cost of sales trended up as well by 8 percent from N12.7 billion last year to N13.7 billion this year, implying that in both years, it cost Viatfoam N70 to generate a N100 revenue.
Operating profit rose by 52 percent to N2.09 billion up from N1.33 billion in 2017. Year to date, Vitafoam share price is among those stocks that closed in the positive territory. It closed at N4 per share to record 33.3 percent year to date appreciation, which makes the stock the 10th best performing stock year to date. By the end of the 2017 financial year, Vitafoam paid shareholders N0.15 as dividend per share.
Overall, when transactions ended last Friday, the All Share Index of the Exchange closed at 31,037.72 basis points compared with 38,243.19 basis points on the last trading day of 2017, representing a negative return of 18.8 percent. Similarly, the market capitalisation closed at N11.3 trillion compared with N13.6 trillion on the last trading day of 2017, which implies that investors so far this year have lost N2.27 trillion, year to date.
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