NSE LIVE! Dangote Cement lifts equities to marginal recovery

After two consecutive negative trading sessions, Nigeria’s most capitalised quoted company, Dangote Cement rallied the stock market to its first positive closing position in the fourth quarter with a modest net capital gain of N7 billion on Thursday. 

While the underlying sentiments remained largely negative and there were more decliners than advancers, gains by Dangote Cement boosted other gains to close Thursday with average day-on-day gain of 0.08 per cent. 

Dangote Cement, which accounts for nearly one-thirds of the total market capitalisation, rose by N1.99 or 1.1 per cent to close at N183 per share. The top gainers’ list also indicated major rallies within the oil and gas and manufacturing sectors. Seven-Up Bottling Company recorded the highest gain of N12.20 to close at N158. 

Seplat Petroleum Development Company followed with a gain of N3.50 to close at N350. Conoil rose by N2.90 to close at N35.90. Forte Oil chalked up N1.40 to close at N159.90 while Flour Mills of Nigeria rose by N1 to close at N21.05 per share.

With these, aggregate market capitalisation of all companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) rose from N9.621 trillion to close at N9.628 trillion. The benchmark index for the stock market, the All Share Index (ASI), also inched up from its opening index of 28,009.40 points to close at 28,031.90 points. The negative average year-to-date return now stands at -2.13 per cent.

With 23 losers to 20 gainers, most sectoral indices closed in the red. The NSE Industrial Goods Index declined by 3.1 per cent. The NSE Insurance Index slipped by 0.4 per cent. The NSE Banking Index dropped by 0.3 per cent while the NSE Oil & Gas Index lost 0.1 per cent. However, the NSE Consumer Goods Index rose by 0.4 per cent.

Read also:  NSE LIVE! Equities lose N92b in continuing profit-taking

Turnover was above average with the exchange of 348.8 million shares valued at N2.65 billion in 3,366 deals. Access Bank was the most active stock with a turnover of 77.15 million shares worth N416.6 million. Fidelity Bank followed with 42.35 million shares worth N39.7 million while Custodian and Allied placed third with 36.04 million shares valued at N145.9 million.

Meanwhile, most stocks came under selling pressure as investors continued to seek opportunities to lock in recent capital gains. Total Nigeria, which had recorded significant gain in the past month, led the losers with a loss of N8 to close at N287. Lafarge Africa followed with a loss of N5.20 to close at N49.60. Ashaka Cement dropped by N1.24 to close at N15.03. 

Oando lost 28 kobo to close at N5.32. Ecobank Transnational Incorporated declined by 26 kobo to close at N11.14. Guaranty Trust Bank dropped by 24 kobo to close at N23.86 while Cutix dropped by 10 kobo to close at N2.03.

“We expect investors to remain cautious in subsequent trading session while awaiting third quarter results for 2016,” analysts at Afrinvest Securities stated.

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