The month of October was a fascinating one for Nigeria and the stock market, where the Nigerian youth took the mantle of nationhood in questioning their leaders. The month also posted an impressive upside in the stock market – closed with 13.79% gain, the best since January 2018.
Looking at the SSN portfolio, money has been made for some of our subscribers – those who bought stocks when they were recommended from our portfolio.
Africa Prudential, GTB, Lafarge, MTN, Nestle, Stanbic IBTC, United Capital, and Zenith Bank were able to hit the target price.
Unilever – Its revenue was up by 94% to 17.9billion, mostly driven by double-digit growth in its home care division. However, the cut in interest rates has crashed finance income from N1.8 billion this time last year to just above N800m.
Nestle Plc – Its stock gained 21% last week, joining to be in the 10th position of the performing stock. Its gross margin was at 40.7%, although below its 45% average for the quarter, with a reduced operating expense. Nestle also declared a dividend of N25 per share payable November 20th.
GSK Plc – This is the only pharmaceutical company in our portfolio. It closed at 11% up last week after posting an earning per share of 4 kobo per share for the quarter, with revenue of N6 billion and strong working capital of N6.7 billion, which includes a cash balance of 8.6 billion. Even with high revenue growth, operating expenses have remained high. The operating expenses to the percentage of the gross profit was a whopping sum of 95.9%, meaning all revenue is eaten up by expenses.
Disclaimer: Stock Picking is not a science, and you cannot always be sure of making the right calls. It has not been rosy all the way, as a few of the recommended stocks are performing worse than expected. However, because we post our newsletters weekly, we can frequently evaluate our recommendation, assessing if some of our fundamentals are still as solid as they were when we first selected the stock.
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