Dangote Cement, Stanbic, ETI buoy Nigerian stocks as index rises 0.42%

The Nigerian equities market maintained a positive close Tuesday as the NSEASI rose 42bps to 44,493.79 points while year-to-date (YTD) return expanded to 16.3 percent. Accordingly, market capitalization gained N67.1 billiion to settle at N15.9 trillion. Market performance was largely driven by buying interest in DANGCEM(+0.8%), STANBIC (+2.2%) and ETI (+9.3%).

Similarly, activity level improved as volume and value traded inched 53.0 percent and 26.4 percent to 877.0 million units and N7.4 billion respectively.
Performance across sectors was largely mixed as three of five indices under coverage closed northwards. The Insurance index appreciated the most, up 0.7 percent driven by gains in WAPIC (+7.8%), AIICO (+3.2%) and NEM (+1.1%). The Industrial gooda and banking indices followed closely, rising 0.6 percent and 0.5 percent respectively due to a rally in DANGCEM (+0.8%), DIAMOND(+10.0%) and GUARANTY(+0.5%). On the flip side, the oil & gas index shed 0.6 percent as SEPLAT(-1.1%) recorded losses. Also, price depreciation in NESTLE (-2.0%) and UNILEVER (-0.7%) pulled the Consumer Goods index 0.3 percent lower.

Market breadth (advance/decline ratio) which measures investor sentiment, weakened to 1.4x from 3.4x recorded the previous trading day as 34 stocks advanced relative to 24 decliners. The best performers were DIAMOND (+10.0%), SKYE(+10.0%) and STERLING (+10.0%) while ABCTRANS (-8.3%), ROYALEX (-8.3%) and FTNCOCOA(-8.0%) led laggards.

In the near term, analysts expect performance to remain largely positive as the earnings season draws closer.

In the NASD OTC Exchange, the SDFCWAMCO was the only instrument that traded. Total volume and value traded was 11,650 units and N1.8m respectively.