Dangote Cement, Sugar, Stanbic, Nestle lift Nigeria equities as index rebound 2.5%
Reporter
The Nigerian equities rebound from a 2-day downtrend Tuesday, with all-share index appreciating 2.5 percent to close at 36,720.62 points, while year-to-date (YTD) gain improved to 36.6 percent. Market capitalization surged by N302.1 billion to close at N12.7 trillion.
Analysts had specifically bet on the market coming round from the 2-day dip, with many hinging their bets on improved economic data and positive earnings report by corporates.
Tuesday’s positive performance was bolstered by rebound in DANGCEM (+7.3%) and other large and mid-sized caps, including NESTLE (+2.1%), STANBIC (+3.0%) and DANGSUGAR (+5.2%).
Equally, activity level on the exchange surged as volume and value traded rose to 849.6 million units and N94.0 billion respectively. This was due to an off-market cross of 416.0m units of DANGCEM in six deals valued at N87.4 billion.
Sector performance was broadly bullish as all indices closed in the green save for the oil & gas index, which slid 1.3 percent due to investor reaction to FORTE’s (-7.6%) half-year earnings reported Monday and profit taking in OANDO (-2.3%).
The industrial goods index led gainers with a 1.7 percent return following price appreciation in DANGCEM (+7.3%), which offset the decline in WAPCO (-4.7%).
Similarly, the insurance and consumer goods indices climbed 1.2 percent apiece due to gains in MANSARD (+4.8%) and NESTLE (+2.1%) respectively. Likewise, the Banking index improved 20bps on account of gains in UBA (+1.9%) and ZENITH (+0.2%).
Investor sentiment strengthened as market breadth (advancers/decliner’s ratio) rose to 1.6x from previous close of 0.8x after 32 stocks advanced against 20 decliners.
LINKASSURE (+9.8%), NASCON (+8.0%) and DANGCEM (+7.3%) led the gainers’ chart while MORISON (-9.2%), FORTE (-7.6%) and ETERNA (-5.3%) were the worst performers.
Whilst Monday’s performance is largely attributable to DANGCEM, the market would have still closed in the green without DANGCEM.
Furthermore, the improvement in market breadth suggests the equities market may be poised for more positive returns given the unreleased corporate reports, especially for the Tier-1 lenders – which are expected to be positive.