Gains in Dangote Cement bolster market performance by N8bn

 

The domestic bourse started the week on a bullish note as the All Share Index advanced 0.1 percent to 37,651.89 points while year to date loss moderated to 1.5 percent.
Accordingly, investors gained N8.1 billion as market capitalization increased to N13.6 trillion. Today’s positive performance was on account of gains in Dangote Cement (+0.9 percent). Ex-Dangote Cement, market performance would have been down 27 basis points.
However, activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 11.5 percent and 1.8 percent respectively to 151.2 million units and N2.0 billion respectively. The top traded stocks by volume were Access Bank (21.7 million), Zenith Bank (13.9 million) and FBN Holdings (12.7 million) while Zenith Bank (N341.2 million), Guaranty Trust Bank (N237.5 million) and Access Bank (N225.6 million) were the top traded stocks by value.
Sector performance was bearish as 3 of 5 indices under our coverage declined. The Consumer Goods index led laggards, down 8.4 percent due to sell pressures in Dangote Sugar (-2.7 percent) and NASCON (-5.3 percent). The Oil & Gas index followed, shedding 5.0 percent as investors exited positions in Conoil (-1.8 percent) while the Industrial Goods index fell 1.6 percent, majorly due to sell-offs in Lafarge Africa (-2.6 percent) and Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (-4.6 percent) which offset the impact of gains in Dangote Cement (+0.9 percent). On the other hand, the Insurance and Banking indices gained 8.3 percent and 0.1 percent respectively, buoyed by buy interest in Custodian Insurance (+2.7 percent), Equity Assurance (+4.6 percent) and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (+2.0 percent).
Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) remained unchanged at 0.7x as 20 stocks advanced while 30 declined. The best performing stocks were Caverton (+10.0 percent), C&I Leasing (+9.8 percent) and First Aluminium (+7.9 percent) while Unity Bank (-9.0 percent), Multiverse (-8.3 percent) and Dunlop (-6.9 percent) led laggards.