Bullish sentiments persist as oil & gas, food, banking stocks extend gains at Nigerian bourse
Reporter
The Nigerian equities market extended gains at the end of trade Thursday, June 8, 2017, with the bourse’s All Share Index (ASI) rising 77bps to close at 32,937.98 points. Year-to-date (YTD) returns advanced to 22.6%, while market capitalization increased by N86.9 billion to settle at N11.4 trillion.
Thursday’s performance was largely buoyed by oil & gas, food and banking stocks, led by FORTE (+10.2%), INTBREW (+10.2%) SEPLAT (+10.1%), ACCESS (+7.3%) CADBURY (+5.0%) and ZENITH (+2.4%).
Market activity equally improved as volume and value traded rose 5.8% and 18.8% to settle at 528.1m units and N4.8bn respectively.
The past two consecutive days rebound have placed the market on a new 23-month high, with the reopened Forcados crude oil terminal helping to boost confidence within Nigerian market investors.
It would be recalled that, Royal Dutch Shell lifted force majeure on exports of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil on Wednesday, bringing all of the West African country’s oil exports fully online for the first time in 16 months. This may have obviously impacted on the oil and gas sectors rallying on Thursday.
Performance across sectors was mixed as three sectors advanced while two declined. The oil & gas index surged 4.9% on account of maximum gains in FORTE (+10.2%) and SEPLAT (+10.1%).
The Banking index followed, up 3.0%, against the backdrop of sustained buying interest in ACCESS (+7.3%) and ZENITH (+2.4%).
Similarly, the positive streak in the consumer goods sector extended to the 12th session, as the index gained 1.3% due to appreciations in NIGERIAN BREWERIES (+0.9%) and CADBURY (+10.2%).
On the flip side, the industrial goods index fell 1.0% as a result of declines in DANGCEM (-1.9%) and WAPCO (-0.2%) while the Insurance index lost 0.2% on the back of losses in MANSARD (-0.4%) and WAPIC (-3.6%).
Investor sentiment improved significantly as market breadth settled at 3.5x (from 1.0x Wednesday) after 45 stocks advanced against 13 declining stocks.
The best performing stocks Thursday were FORTE (+10.2%), INTBREW (+10.2%) and CADBURY (+5.0%) while GOLDBREW (-4.7%) JBERGER (-4.7%) and NEIMETH (-4.1%) declined the most.
“While the equities market is expected to ride on the positive developments in the economy, we note that that the run of gains over the past weeks may have limited the upside for some stocks,” notes analysts at Afrinvest, adding that the market may be set for a “year round bull run” following the improved flexibility in the administration of FX and anticipated strong Q2 earnings season.