EQUITY MARKET REVIEW
After closing high in the previous two weeks, the Nigerian equity market this week recorded loss, closing red in all the trading sessions except on Friday. This was driven by low market upbeat as many investors exit positions following recent stocks appreciation. Consequently, the All-Share Index and Market Capitalization value shed 2.51% w/w to close at 30,636.36 points and ₦11.424 trillion respectively.
Nominally, this translates to a week-on-week decline of ₦297.7 billion in the Market Capitalization. Of the five sectors, four recorded losses w/w; – Banking (-2.5% w/w), Industrial goods (-3.7%), Insurance (-2.2%) and Consumer goods (-3.4%), save for Oil & Gas which gained 0.1% w/w.
Overall, a total turnover of 1.45 billion shares worth ₦14.79 billion in 19,313 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of the Nigerian exchange in contrast to a total of 1.81 billion shares valued at ₦17.23 billion that exchanged hands last week in 18,325 deals. A total of Sixteen (16) equities appreciated in price this
week, lower than Forty-nine (49) equities in the preceding week. Fifty-two (52)equities depreciated in price w/w, lower than Fifty-nine (59) equities in the preceding week, while One hundred and three (103) equities remained unchanged, higher than Sixty-two (62) equities recorded in the preceding week.
ABCTRANS (+17.24%); UNIONDAC (+11.11%); MBENEFIT (+10.00%); BETAGLAS (+9.09%) and UAC-PROP (+8.18%) emerged the best performing stocks this week, while MCNICHOLS (-15.38%); NIGERINS (-15.38%); FIDELTYBK (-12.00%); UBA (-11.69%) and ACCESS (-11.54%) emerged top losers for the week.
Market Outlook: Week ending February 8, 2019
With political activities ahead of the presidential election reaching a crescendo, we expect the overall market sentiment to remain flat in the next trading week. However, we anticipate a moderate price appreciation of major bellwether as earnings results are released in the coming weeks.
GTI EQUITY WATCH LIST
Nigerian Breweries Plc
- Nigerian Breweries is a dominant brand in the brewery sector of the consumer goods industry.
- The company’s agenda for costs leadership and market leadership is intended to help improve its results in future periods.
- However, increasing competition from other brewery companies such as International breweries may be a threat to the company’s predominant
hold on market share. - In its 9m’ 2018 results, the company’s revenue and profit declined by 5.6% and 38.4% y-o-y respectively.
- With continuous innovation and diversification of products coupled with an expected slight improvement in macroeconomic condition, the 2019 financial
year is expected to experience improvements. However, its actions to remain market leader amidst increasing competition will affect what position it holds in the coming years.
Our target price for Nigerian Breweries is ₦132.00, which represents an upside potential of 78.3% over the current market price in a 12-months period.
Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc
- Flour Mills is a market leader in the food and agro-allied products sector in Nigeria.
- The company has continue to build on works on backward integration in core value chain; sugar sweeteners, edible oils, feeds & proteins and cassava starches which is expected to bring down its input cost considerably in years ahead.
- It has a good and reliable distribution network across the country.
- In her recent 9M’18, ₦6 Billion and ₦7.9 billion were realized as revenue and PAT. However, these represents a decline of 6.3% and 40.4% respectively when compared y-o-y to 2017.
Our target price for Flour Mills is ₦26.00, representing a 40% upside potential to current market’s price of ₦18.55.
Dangote Flour Mills Plc
- Dangote flour remains a significant part of the flourmills industry within the consumer goods industry.
- The company partook in general downturn experienced in 2018 resulting in a decline in both revenues and profit by 16.93% and 75.01% respectively
Our target price for Dangote flour is ₦10.14, representing an upside potential of 74.82% to the closing market price of N5.8 as at Friday.
In the meantime, the following stocks listed below also falls into our watch list for next week:
Zenith bank, Access Bank, CCNN, NEM and Fidelity Bank.
MONEY MARKET
In anticipation of inflows from maturing OMO bills (₦192 billion), Treasury bills (₦254.6 billion) and monthly FAAC disbursement to the tiers of government (₦649.19 billion), the CBN this week conducted multiple mop-up operations in the various money market segment to keep system liquidity at bay.
On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, the CBN floated OMO auction worth ₦800 billion across different tenors, but recorded 67% success rate as the apex bank was only able to mop-up ₦535.24 billion for the market.
At the Treasury bills auction on Wednesday, the CBN’s position of rolling over the maturing ₦254.6 billion maturing bills was met with higher demand as investors
oversubscribed by 27%. However, the apex ration its offer across the various tenors, allotting ₦28.08 billion (91-days), ₦58.68 billion (182-days) and ₦167.93 (364-
days) at stop rates of 11%; 13.5% and 15% respectively.
Consequent upon the above, system liquidity indicators, Overnight (O/N) and collateralize Open-Buy-Back (OBB) rates which began the week high at of 17.31%
and 16.06% respectively eased to 11.86% and 11.85% respectively as at close of trading on Friday.
At the short-end; i.e. NIBOR, 30-day, 90-day and 180-day rates closed at 10.87%, 13.24% and 13.42% compared to 13.51%, 13.27% and 14.92% recorded in the
previous week.
In anticipation of inflows from maturing OMO bills worth ₦315.04 billion next week, we expect the CBN to conduct OMO mop-up to squeeze system liquidity ahead of the presidential election week.
BOND MARKET
The first monthly FGN bond auction for the year 2019 by the Debt Management Office (DMO) this week recorded mixed sentiment. We noticed low buy interest at
the short and middle end of the curve as offers – FGN APR 2023 (₦50 billion) and FGN MAR 2025 (₦50 billion) got subscription of ₦16.56 billion and ₦31.25 billion respectively. At the end, the CBN allotted ₦5.84 billion (FGN APR 2023) at stop rate of 15.2% and ₦20.09 billion (FGN MAR 2025) at stop rate of 15.25%.
However, FGN FEB 2028 (₦50 billion offer) got total subscription of ₦149.27 billion, of which the CBN allotted ₦91.04 billion at a stop rate of 15.35%.
At the next bond auction slated for February 20, 2019, we expect stop rates to remain unchanged while the CBN rollover the unsold instruments.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET
The Naira this week gained against the USD at the official window but depreciated at the I&E FX window. The official rate gained 0.02% to close the week at
₦306.75/USD as against the previous week closing rate of ₦306.80/USD, while the pair lost 0.07% at the I&E FX window to close the week at ₦362.71/USD as
against ₦364.46/USD last Friday.
Also, Nigeria’s foreign reserves balance this week rose by $53 million from last week closing level of $43.118 billion to $43.176 billion; while Brent crude oil futures
rose by $0.07 w/w from $61.23pbl last Friday to $61.30pbl this Friday.
