Nigerian Equities Market Report: Recovery Move Paused, as Airtel Africa, Dangote Cement Dipped: 16/09/19

Starting off the new week, equities trading on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange ended in the negative territory, as the lead performance pointer-NSEASI gave up 74Bpts and closed at 27,574.32 from 27,779.00. Safe NSE-Lotus II and NSE-Industrial Goods that shed points, other observed market indices in this report gained. Thus, Week to Date loss is 74BPts while the total gained points in the month of September stood at 18Bpts. See the index movement table for details.

Value loss by the Market Capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N99.632 billion, same as 74Bpts below the opening value.  Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 29 ADVANCERS and 13 LAGERS. NSEASI Year to Date loss is now 1,227Bpts while the Market Capitalization Year to Date gain stood at N1.702 trillion same as 1,452Bpts above the year’s opening value.

A close observation of activities logs at the end of today’s trading activities, confirmed that, the on-going recovery move was seemingly supressed by the loss in the share prices of few highly capitalised equities, especially; Airtel Africa and Dangote Cement. In other words, we are of the opinion that, traders are still very positive through today’s trading session, as most blue chip still maintained positive path. Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning that profit taking activities may set in during the week, due to the sharp gains observed so far, after long bearish sessions.

On the strength of the above, we maintained that traders should remain positive, as market fundamentals have seen the end of its strongest negative factor in the name of senatorial appointments and policy direction. While positioning therefore, consideration should be made of the third quarter earnings season of equities with December year end, which will commence from next month.

As at the time this report was gathered, Brent Crude sells at 68.38$/bbl, this is 64Bpts below the previous close price.

The I&E FX Window opened at N361.75 traded as high as N363.00 before rounding up at N362.32, having transacted a total of $67.58 million through the day. Please note that, margin between the close and open value is 8Bpts gain. We are of the opinion that the FX-Market will trade within same range tomorrow. See below table for Lagos BDC Fx-rates.

In the money market, the Overnight (O/N) rate closed at 36.36%, same as 11.64% above the previous closing position. Meanwhile, Open Buy-Back (OBB) rate ended at 33.86%, that is, 11.43% above the previous close. We are of the opinion that the money market will maintain this range on the next business day. Safe Trade.