NSE LIVE! Dangote Cement rallies equities to a strong start

Dangote Cement Plc, Nigeria’s most capitalised quoted company, played the cheerleader for the stock market on Monday as substantial gain by the cement company boosted the overall market position. With 22 losers to 17 gainers, the overall market position was heading for a negative close until Dangote Cement counterbalanced the negative trends in the equally-capitalised breweries and petroleum-marketing sectors.

Dangote Cement’s share price rose by N9.70 or 7.80 per cent to close at N134 per share. This represented a gain of N165.29 billion based on current issued shares of Dangote Cement. The rally came on the heels of reports that Dangote Cement has launched operations at a new cement facility and it was planning to build two new cement plants.
The gain by Dangote Cement weighed on the overall market position and overshadowed widespread underlining negative sentiments. Aggregate market value of all quoted equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) rose to N8.246 trillion as against its opening value of N8.083 trillion, representing a gain of N163 billion.

The All Share Index (ASI)-the value-based common index that tracks prices of all quoted companies indicated average gain of 2.02 per cent to close at 23,977.10 points compared with its opening index of 23,501.87 points. The gain helped to reduce the negative average year-to-date return to -16.29 per cent.

Read also: NSE Roundup! Equities open on cautious optimism

Sectoral analysis showed mixed performance across the sectors. The NSE Industrial Goods Index rode on the back of Dangote Cement’s gain to return a sectoral average gain of 3.8 per cent. The NSE Banking Index also appreciated by 0.1 per cent. However, the NSE Insurance Index dropped by 0.4 per cent. The NSE Oil & Gas Index declined by 0.03 per cent while the NSE Consumer Goods Index fell marginally by 0.01 per cent.

Other top gainers on Monday included Nestle Nigeria, the highest-priced stock at NSE, which rose by N2.02 to close at N705.02, Seplat Petroleum Development Company rose by N2 to close at N245, Unilever Nigeria added N1.50 to close at N31.84, PZ Cussons Nigeria rose by N1 to close at N21.90 per share, Guaranty Trust Bank added 25 kobo to close at N16.24 while UACN Property Development Company gathered 11 kobo to close higher at N5.46 per share.

On the other hand, Guinness Nigeria led the losers with a loss of N2.84 to close at N119.50. Mobil Oil Nigeria followed with a loss of N2.62 to close at N145.01. Conoil declined by N2.09 to close at N20.25. Okomu Oil Palm dropped by N1.01 to close at N27.99. Nigerian Breweries lost 85 kobo to close at N95.20. Cadbury Nigeria declined by 25 kobo to close at N17.80 per share. Pharma Deko dropped by 11 kobo to close at N2.14 while Zenith Bank International declined by 10 kobo to close at N12.73 per share.

Investors staked N1.69 billion on a total of 190.39 million shares in 2,756 deals. FCMB was the most active stock with a turnover of 38.53 million shares valued at N34.22 million. Zenith Bank followed with a turnover of 29.33 million shares worth N371.24 million while FBN Holdings recorded a turnover of 21.68 million shares worth N85.2 million.
“Our overall short to medium term outlook for the market is neutral, as prices seem to have corrected for anticipated weaker 2015 full-year earnings while macroeconomic concerns and foreign exchange uncertainties will continue to limit upsides. Investors with short holding period and greater risk appetite could take advantage of volatile price movements within the market and key in to value stocks currently trading at attractive entry prices,” Afrinvest Securities stated in post trading comment.

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