Dangote Cement, Sugar, Others Lead Stock Market’s N155bn Gain

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By Nse Anthony-Uko
The bull strengthened its hold on the trading floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday to close positive for the second consecutive session, causing market capitalisation to gain further by N155 billion.
In summary, the All Share Index (ASI) gained 432.60 absolute points, representing a growth of 1.03 per cent to close at 42,604.40 points. Similarly, the market capitalisation gained N155 billion to close at N15.289 trillion. The upturn was impacted by gains recorded in medium and large capitalised stocks, amongst which are; Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, Nigerian Breweries, Wapco and Stanbic IBTC.
Analysts at APT Securities and Funds Limited said, “the equities market close positive for the second consecutive trading yesterday as expected on improved bargain hunting which might play either way in the next trading session as sentiment remains quite uncertain, we can only hope for another round of bargaining to reduce expected loss week-on-week.”
Market breadth was positive, with 29 gainers versus 24 losers. FBN Holdings recorded the highest price gain of 8.23 per cent, to close at N12.50 per share. Wapic Insurance gained 6.25 per cent to close at 68 kobo, while May and Baker and Cutix appreciated by five per cent each, to close at N2.94 and N2.31 per share, respectively. Also, Dangote Sugar went up by 4.76 per cent to close at N22 per share.
On the other hand, Caverton led the losers’ chart by 8.77 per cent, to close at N2.60 per share. Courtville shed 8.70 per cent to close at 42 kobo, while First Aluminium depreciated by 7.50 per cent to close at 37 kobo per share. Unic Insurance down by 5.56 per cent to close at 34 kobo, while Unity Bank declined by 5.52 per cent to close at N1.71 per share.
Also the total volume traded improved by 18.13 per cent to 615.18 million shares, worth N6.28 billion, and traded in 5,904 deals. Transactions in the shares of Multiverse topped the activity chart with 87.1 million shares valued at N31.36 million. Skye Bank followed with 65.57 million shares worth N73.8 million, while Access Bank traded 59 million shares valued at N766.38 million.
FCMB Groups traded 56.14 million shares valued at N158.3 million, while FBN Holdings transacted 39.41 million shares worth N499.04 million.