Impacted by gains on highly capitalized equities, equities trading on the floor of The Nigerian Stock Exchange closed in the positive territory. Total point added was 93Bpts as it rounded up trade at 40,992.97 from 40,615.42. It was a mixed performance amongst the observed market indices as shown in the index movement table. Week to Date loss points reduced to 7Bpts and Month to Date loss equally adjusted down to 67Bpts. See the index movement table for details.
Value gained by the market capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N136.759 billion, same as 93Bpts above the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 15 advancers and 30 lagers. NSEASI Year to Date gain is now 7.19% while the Market Capitalization Year to Date gain stood at N1.239 trillion same as 9.11% above the year’s opening value.
Siding with our expectation, the market posted a remarkable recovery right on its support line during today’s trading activities. Although this is positive and has increased hopes of the bull takeover, it was observed that most blue chips are yet to agree with the move. As noted above, only few equities feature on the gainers’ log while others lined up on the lagers’ log.
Complimenting the previously released Headline Inflation figure, the National Assembly eventually passed the 2018 budget as promised today. From the passed budget, the Federal Government will spend N2.2tn to service debts, with N1.75tn to be spent on domestic debts, and N254.07bn on foreign debt service, while the sum of N190bn is appropriated as “sinking fund for retiring maturing debs.” In 2017, debt servicing gulped N2.014tn.
The crude oil benchmark price for the budget also changed from $45 proposed by the Executive to $51. The additional N508bn to the budget size was reflected in the sectoral allocations to government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
In our opinion this should further impact market fundamental positively and increased investors’ confidence. Nevertheless, we are not taking lightly the investors’ fear of possible impact of the upcoming national election on the market trend. We believe this is far stronger than all economic indicators put together. Despite this fact, we recommend that investors should position for the second quarter financials. Equities with half year incentive policies should be considered. Safe Trade.
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