The Nigerian equities market witnessed yet another lull period as all major market indicators stride southwards and end in bear’s camp. On a day which saw the ratio of advancers to decliners to be 1:2.57, the ASI lost 171.58 points to close at 49,615.55 whilst the market capitalization declined by US$0.31billion to close at US$89.12billion. However, values of transactions experienced a surge as the indicator increased by 50.29%.
NSE today added a total of 723,161,725 ordinary shares to the shares outstanding in favour of AIICO Plc, following the successful completion of their last public offer. This new listing now brings the total shares outstanding of AIICO to 3.402 billion units. Furthermore, a total of 4,081,925,292 ordinary shares were added to the shares outstanding of Skye Bank Plc. This comprises of 1,500,608,958 units as rights issue and 2, 231,599,145 units as offer for subscription and 349,717,180 as supplementary. The total shares outstanding of the bank now stand at 11.584 billion units.
Linkage Assurance Plc today released its audited results for the year ended 31st December, 2007. Turnover jumped by 258.49% to N1.026 billion, from N286.2 million, PBT also increased by 298.95% to N304.8 million, from N76.4 million, PAT also increased by 283.08% to N273.9 million, from N71.5 million, in the corresponding period of 2007. Flourmill Plc also released its un-audited results for first quarter ended 30th June, 2008. Turnover grew by 59.06% to N36.979 billion, while PAT increased by 33.20% to N1.950 billion and PAT increased by 33.17% to N1.365 billion. In spite of the good earnings reported by the two companies, their share price closed flat. This might be due to the current mood in the market for Linkage Assurance and low traded for Flourmill.
The downturn in the market activities may be connected to the wearing out of the euphoria generated by the recent policy measures introduced by stakeholders which stimulated a short rally which lasted barely a week. The present situation suggests that investors’ confidence have not been fully regained. In our opinion, the market seems to be waiting for the implementation of the other strategies recently announced. Furthermore, the rising cost of fund, tight liquidity condition and scarcity of investible funds are also obstructing the recovery of the market in view of the uncertainties of the policy initiatives.
Index was down by 34 basis pts on 11,890 trades. Average size of trade was US$5,793 with total value of US$68.88m. Market cap closed at US$89.12billion.
Overall, there were 21 gainers and 54 losers and 62 unchanged.
The Banking sector led the volume chart followed by the Insurance sector and both accounted for 80.61% of total volume traded.
Afribank Plc traded 212.301 million shares to top the overall volume chart. Other stocks that closed in the top echelon were Spring Bank, Goldlink Insurance, Japaul Oil and Investment and Allied Insurance.
Net bid: Universal Insurance, Sterling Bank, Continental Reinsurance and Cornerstone Insurance Plc.
Net Offer: Investment and Allied Insurance, Oceanic bank, Bank PHB, Access Bank and GTB.
Top Gainers: PZ, Presco, Nahco, Sterling Bank and Academy Press.
Top Losers: Julius Berger, NBC, GTB, Chevron and Dangote Sugar.
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