Courtesy of Meristem Securities, here is the market report for the last week:

STOCK MARKET BRIEF FOR THE WEEK ENDED FRIDAY DECEMBER 12, 2008.
Stocks trading resumed trailing the bearish path after the 2-day Salah holiday which left investors to a 3-day trading week. On resumption, activities were no better than they were before the break, in fact the NES All Share index hit 28,677.44 points, the lowest it had gotten in the last two and half years. The index lost 6.45 percent to close at 28,677.44 points while market capitalisation of the 213 listed equities slumped by 6.45 percent to stand at N6.343trn (USD$48.06b). An aggregate of 774m shares were traded this 3-day week in 21,635 deals worth N10.89b in contrast to 1.59b shares transacted in 38,043 trades valued at N10.89b the previous week.

Price Movement Chart
Total number of advancers this week ranged between 9 and 13 stocks as the market witnessed very low bullish activity. By end of trading on Friday, 9 stocks appreciated in value in contrast to 6 stocks recorded previous week. OANDO emerged top gainer for the week followed by UTC, NB and BOCGAS. A fair representation of most active sectors was observed as equities from banking sector, food/beverages & tobacco sector, breweries sector, petroleum (marketing) sector and industrial/domestic sector all featured in the gainers’ camp. On the other hand, the bears drove in 73 stocks into the losers’ camp with DANGSUGAR sliding N2.28k to close at N13.72k. Trailing behind is, ASHAKACEM (down N2.42k), UNILEVER (down N1.43k) and PZ (down N1.51k).

Sectoral Performance
Stocks in the banking click continued to hold sway in transaction volume as the sector accounted for over 47 percent (337.47m shares) of market turnover which was exchanged in 12,987 deals and valued at N3.31b. FIDELITYBK (61.76m units),FIRSTBANK (332.33m units) and UBA (32.19m units) were the most sought-after stocks in the banking sector this week. In1,826 deals, investors exchanged over 229.55 million shares in the insurance sector valued at N497.86m. REGALINS (45.16m units), LASACO (37.42m units) and MBENEFIT (29.32m units) were the main sector controllers. INTBREW’s shares which on Thursday spurred up the Breweries sector to third most active sector, still held ground as the sector maintained its ranking while accounting for 69.66m shares (10 percent) exchanged in 603 deals worth N623.83m.

CORPORATE NEWS:
CHEVRON, Others Post Results
CAPALBETO PLC, CHEVRON PLC, OKOMUOIL PLC, BERGER PLC, FIDSON PLC, GUINNESS PLC, NASCON PLC, DUNLOP PLC, International Breweries Plc (INTBREW PLC) Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc (HMARKINS PLC) and JOHNHOLT PLC all made public their results for the respective period ended.

Corporate Actions
The board of AG LEVENTIS Nigeria Plc and Nigerian Breweries Plc (NB PLC) proposed interim dividends of N0.10k andN1.90k per share respectively. Closure date of Register for both companies is scheduled for December 22 and December 29, 2008 in that order.