Aug 7 (Lagos) - The Nigerian equities market continued to enjoy some level of renewed interest on the back of fair earnings results released by a number of bellwether stocks, coupled with the stability seen in the crude oil market.
In the absence of any external shocks, we expect the positive performance to filter into tomorrow's session. However, we still advise cautious trading by investors in fundamentally sound names.
The domestic bourse maintained its bullish run in the week, rising 19bps to close at 24,930.34 points as gains in mid/large cap stocks such as
SEPLAT (+903bps),
GUARANTY (+64bps) and
MTNN (+42bps) among others mitigated the impact of declines in
BUACEMENT (-174bps),
FLOURMILL (-103bps) and
ACCESS (-78bps).
However, compared to the high turnover recorded yesterday, activity level plotted a downward slope in today's session as total volume and value traded dipped 42.72% and 37.87% respectively, while trades in MTNN,
GUARANTY and
STANBIC accounted for 51.95% of total market turnover.
Investors' confidence as measured by the market breadth however remained positive closing at 2.00x as 20 stocks closed north while 10 settled south.
Stocks to Watch
On the Bid Cart:
SEPLAT continued with its bullish run, gaining another 903bps to close as the best performing stock for the day at N 350.00. The counter which declined about 36.00% in a space of two months just before the release of its H1'20 results has now gained about 20.00% in the last few sessions, erasing part of its initial losses as we continue to see demand from foreign investors in the counter. Following today's gain, its YTD return moderated to -40.89%.
On the Offer Cart:
FLOURMILL closed as one of the decliners for the day, closing 103bps below its opening price to settle the day at N 19.20. The two consecutive sessions of price decreases resulted from profit taking in the counter which gained about 15.00% after dropping its impressive FY'20 results where revenue and PAT were up by 8.79% and 184.41% respectively.