Daily Market Performance: Commentary

Market Stays Upbeat, Indices Soar: AP, Conoil, Julius Berger and ETI Lead Price Gains; Oando and Nestle are Top Losers ::
Thursday 03/01/2008

The market held to it's gains of yesterday, powering forward with a 1.16% rise of the NSE allshare index. The index closed at 59,257.16, that's 677 points up from 58,579.77. All other key indices - volume traded, transactions value, deals executed - were significantly up, again signaling a positive market bias. Several stocks traded heavily, but the banking sector commanded the most traded values, taking the top nine spots in value of transactions. Intercontinental had the heaviest value at N2.51bn, with the next four spots to Afribank (N1.93bn), Oceanic Bank (N1.16bn), GT Bank (N1.08bn) and UBA (N.91bn). Insurance stocks were also in heavy trading as would be seen from transaction volumes (units) and were only overshadowed in transaction values by the banks that have higher market prices. High volumes were done in Staco, Link Assurance, LASACO, NEM, Cornerstone, Oasis, Equity Assurance, Continental and Custodian (see volume chart below).

Prices gains dominated trading, with 75 gaining stocks and only 15 losers. Oando went down N6.00, Nestle N5.80 and Oceanic Bank N1.02, leaving the other 12 losses in the lower kobo region. However, the gains, led again by AP (N10.86), were again more emphatic, ranging mainly in naira and high kobo values. A number of the banks are on technical suspension over their on-going or recent share offers, but the rest recorded a mixed price performance. Food and beverages, healthcare, petroleum and even conglomerates sectors were all relatively firm on price, with significant gains. (See naira price-change ranking chart here). So far, the market has shown firmness, going into the new year. Observe too that not only did nearly all insurance sector stocks pick gains, but most were close to the 5% gain limit. Many investors would seem to be taking positions in the sector. Check the relative (%) price movement chart here.

In all, the second day of trading in the year showed a strong buying posture and market firmness. Given that the financial year has just closed in December for several of the companies, investors may just be positioning in companies that have shown good earnings and are expected to offer healthy returns.

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