Nigeria’s stock market suffered the biggest day-on-day loss in 12 months on Friday as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All-Share Index (ASI) dropped 2.17 percent on the backdrop of sell offs in the industrial sector.
The industrial index fell 5.4 percent on the day following sell-offs in the country’s biggest listed firm Dangote Cement.
Dangote Cement, which accounts for around a third of market capitalisation, shed 6.1 percent due to reasons immediately unclear. The company had in July posted a 1.53 percent decline in pretax profit to N77.1 billion for the second quarter.
Analysts at FBNQuest Capital said Dangote Cement’s results were weaker than expected in the second quarter, citing that as a reason for the decline.
The equities market have fallen 5.3 percent so far this year, after climbing 42 percent last year.
The decline recorded Friday brings the market performance to a ten-month low as worries about political risk in the run-up to next year’s presidential election and mixed second-quarter earnings weighed on sentiment.
Other decliners include GlaxoSmithKline down 10 percent, Sterling Bank down 8.72 percent, Unity Bank 6.38 percent, WAPCO 6.35 percent.
The last time the market recorded a decline in excess of 2 percent during one single session was August 15, 2017.
