Dangote Cement lifts Nigeria’s equities index 1.0% after three days of consecutive losses

The Nigerian equities market rebounded Wednesday after three days of consecutive losses as uptick in Dangote Cement (DANGCEM) helped push the market north.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) all-share index (ASI) rose 1.0% at the close of trading to 35,207.89 points, while year-to-date gain improved to 31.0 percent, just as market capitalization added N124.5 billion to settle at N12.1 trillion.

Wednesday’s positive performance was broadly driven by gains in DANGCEM (+3.7%), without which the market would have declined six basis points (bps).

Market activity level moderated as volume and value traded fell 21.4 percent and 59.9 percent to 137.4 million units and N1.1 billion respectively.

Sector performance was broadly mixed as only 2 indices advanced. The industrial goods index bucked a 3-day losing streak, to close 2.3 percent higher on account of upticks in DANGCEM (+3.7%) and WAPCO (+1.2%).

The oil & gas index followed with 1.5 percent gain on the back of bargain hunting in OANDO (+4.4%) and TOTAL (+3.5%).

On the other hand, after five days of uptrend, the insurance index fell 0.3 percent as investors took profit in MANSARD (-4.5%) and NEM (-3.4%). The banking index dipped 25bps due to losses in UBA (-2.9%) and UBN (-4.7%), while the consumer goods index lost 4bps as a result of a decline in NESTLE (-0.3%).

Investor sentiment measured by market breadth (advancers/decliners ratio) improved to 0.9x (from 0.5x yesterday) as 19 stocks advanced against 20 that declined.

The best performing stocks Wednesday were MAYBAKER (+4.9%), CONTINSURE (+4.9%) and 7UP (+4.9%) while NPFMCRFBK (-5.2%), NASCON (-5.0%), while NEIMETH (-4.7%) led laggards.

Though market performance is largely attributed to gains in DANGCEM, analysts say the improvement in market breadth suggests investors are cherry picking stocks that previously witnessed declines. To this end, they expect some more positive performance in subsequent sessions.