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NSE ASI further down amidst thin volumes

What shaped the market today?

• The Nigerian bourse continued its bearish start to the year with the NSE ASI down 46bps amidst significantly tepid trade volumes. On the global front, Asian markets continued higher, particularly, the Nikkei rallied, boosted by a relatively weaker yen and better than expected Manufacturing PMI. Conversely, European bourses pared previous gains despite upbeat inflation data. Meanwhile, U.S. futures pointed to a higher open as investors continue to eye the 20,000 points milestone.
• The Financial Services sector (-162bps) continued to spearhead the broad market decline following further declines in heavyweight GUARANTY (-458bps) and ETI (-235bps). The Industrial Goods (-100bps) and the Oil & Gas (-46bps) sectors also closed in negative territory owing to losses across ASHAKACEM (-491bps), CCNN (-421bps), OANDO (-380bps) and FO (-74bps). The Consumer Goods sector however closed flat amidst mixed performances in DANGSUGAR (-196bps) and FLOURMILL (+272bps). Notably, VITAFOAM (+496bps) notched a second consecutive gain as investors continue to cheer a 12k/share dividend declaration.
• Market breadth remained negative with 13 advances and 18 declines.

What will shape the nexttrading session?

• We believe the consistently low volume traded is a pointer to the low investor appetite and we expect this to weigh on the NSE ASI in the coming session.