Bulls Strengthen Grip… ASI up 0.5%

An Extraction of the Afrinvest Daily Market Report for April 23rd 2025

Photo Credit: NGX

Today, bulls tightened grip on the market as buying interest in banking stocks - UBA (+5.9%), FIRSTHOLDCO (+5.9%), and FIDELITY (+8.3%) pushed the NGX-ASI up by 50bps to 105,283.67 points. As a result, YTD return improved to 2.3% (previously 1.8%), while market capitalisation gained 0.5% to ₦66.2tn. Meanwhile, activity level surged as volume and value traded rose 110.8% and 154.1% to 744.8m units and ₦18.3bn respectively.

Bearish Sector Performance

Across sectors under our coverage, performance was bearish as four indices closed in the red, while the other two closed green. Leading the laggards, the Insurance and AFR-ICT indices fell 0.8% and 0.5% respectively, owing to selloffs in CORNERST (-7.4%) and AIICO (-2.4%). Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Industrial indices inched lower by 10bps and 2bps accordingly, due to price decline in TOTAL (-5.4%) and TRIPPLEG (-10.0%). Conversely, buying interest in UBA (+5.9%), FIDELITY (+8.3%), DANGSUGA (+8.5%) and INTBREW (+5.8%) pushed the Banking and Consumer Goods indices higher by 2.9% and 1.2%, respectively.

Outlook

Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, weakened to 0.19x (previously: 0.31x) as 33 stocks gained, 16 lost while 88 were unchanged. We expect the bourse to extend the mild gains tomorrow, driven by bargain activities.