Nigeria’s share index down 0.46% as investors swoop on Dangote Cement to take profit

A 35 basis points gain that would have seen Nigeria’s capital market All Share Index post positive outcome frittered away quickly as an appreciation in the price of the equities of Dangote Cement on Tuesday led to a swoop on Wednesday by investors who embarked on a spirited effort to take profit. The All-Share Index fell 0.46 percent as a result.

Dangote is the market’s most capitalised stock and tend to swing the market whenever it as much as catches a cold and sneezes.

DANGCEM recorded a share price decline of 2.4 percent while other market bellwethers such as FBNH (-2.8%) and STANBIC (-1.6%) contributed to the decline in the benchmark index which settled at 32,963.27 points.

The day’s performance worsened year-to-date loss to -13.8 percent while market capitalization fell by N55.2 billion to N12.0 trillion.

Activity level weakened as volume and value traded declined 22.8 percent and 37.5 percent to close at 172.2 million units and N2.1 billion respectively.

The top traded stocks by volume were FIDELITY (33.8 million units), UBA (19.8 million units) and ZENITH (12.3 million units) while GUARANTY (N1.0 billion), UBA (165.8 billion) and FBNH (71.7 billion) were the top traded stocks by value.

Performance across sectors was largely bearish as four out of five indices closed in the red.

The industrial goods index shed the most, down 1.4 percent as a result of price depreciation in DANGCEM (-2.4%) and CCNN (-0.8%).

The insurance and consumer goods indices followed, down 0.4 percent and 0.1 percent respectively on the back of profit taking in CUSTODIAN (-7.4%), CONTINSURE (-3.4%), NASCON (-3.1%) and FLOURMILL (-1.8%) while the oil & gas index marginally shed 4bps following sell-offs in OANDO (-1.2%).

On the flipside, the banking index advanced 1.9 percent as a result of buying interests in ZENITH (+4.7%) and UBN (+3.9%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) weakened to 0.7x from 1.3x recorded the last session as 16 stocks appreciated against 23 decliners.

The best performing stocks were led by UACPROP (+10.0%), UPL (+7.3%) and ZENITH (+4.6%) while BERGER (-10.0%), ROYALEX (-9.1%) and UNIONDAC (-8.6%) were the worst performers.

In line with the day’s performance, analysts at Afrinvest say they see a bearish outlook for the rest of the week.