By Omobayo Azeez
At the close of the first positive trading session in the week, the stock of Dangote Cement Plc led six others to shore up depleting capitalization of equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) with N10 billion profit.
The market has been on free fall due to disturbing macroeconomic headwinds in the local and global markets, especially those with direct link with Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and massive deflation in the global oil market which are taking tolls on economies around the world.
Amidst the downtrend, however, activities ended in the green territory on Thursday as Dangote Cement, leading six other gainers, appreciated in share price by 9.9 per cent or N11.60 to close at N128.40 per share.
This was despite a negative market breadth reported during the session which saw emergence of 19 declining stocks, led by MTN Nigeria, against the six advancers of the day.
Consequently, the All-Share Index (ASI) advanced by 0.1 per cent to 21,121.20 basis points, while market capitalization jacked up by N10 billion to close at N11.007 trillion from N10.997 trillion it closed the preceding the session.
Consequently, Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (MtD) losses eased to -0.8 per cent and -21.3 per cent respectively.
Analysing by sectors, demand for shares of Dangote Cement caused the Industrial Goods index to close positive at 2.6 per cent. However, the Banking, Consumer goods and Insurance indices shed -2.2 per cent, -1.9 per cent and -0.8 per cent respectively while the Oil and Gas index remained flat.
Meanwhile, aside Dangote Cement, other gainers are Flourmill, gaining N1.50 to close at N20.20 per share; Glaxosmith with N0.40 gain to close at N4.0, while Livestock and UnionDAC advanced by N0.06 and N0.01 to close at N0.70 and N0.26 per share respectively.
On the losers’ chart, MTN Nigeria topped with by losing N5.6 to close at N92.80 per share followed by Nigerian Breweries which shed N2.30 to close at N22.50 per share.
While Zenith Bank and Stanbic IBTC Group each lost N0.40 in value to close at N11 and N23.90 per share respectively, Internation Breweries shed N0.35 to close at N5 per share.
According to trading statistics by the NSE, the total volume of trades increased to 65.4 per cent to 255.59 million units, valued at N2.86 billion and exchanged in 4,418 deals.
