Dangote Cement, 18 Others Surrender NSE to Bears as Index Sheds 0.10%

By Dipo Olowookere

For the first time in eight consecutive trading sessions, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed in the negative territory on Thursday at the close of trading activities.

This was the handiwork of Dangote Cement, Fidson, Access Bank and 16 other price losers, which invited the bears to the market to oust the bulls. As a result, the market crumbled by 0.10 per cent and expanded the year-to-date loss to 5.73 per cent.

Dangote Cement was the biggest price decliner yesterday as its shares went down by 80 kobo to trade at N134.20 per unit, while Fidson depreciated by 29 kobo to sell for N3.71 per unit.

Shares of Access Bank lost 15 kobo at the stock market a day after a fire incident at one of its Lagos branches to close at N6.25 per unit, while Lafarge Africa fell by 15 kobo to quote at N11.55 per share, with Zenith Bank losing 10 kobo to settle at N16.85 per share.

On the flip side, Nigerian Breweries topped the gainers’ table after adding N1 to its share price to close at N37 per share, while May & Baker gained 27 kobo to finish at N3 per unit.

GTBank rose by 15 kobo to sell for N25.20 each, University Press appreciated by 14 kobo to quote at N1.63 per share, while Axa Mansard improved by 11 kobo to sell for N1.84 per unit.

Business Post reports that the volume of shares traded by investors yesterday improved by 37.84 per cent to 249.1 million units from the previous day’s 180.7 units.

Also, the value of shares exchanged by traders increased by 15.32 per cent to N1.6 billion from N1.4 billion, while the number of deals decreased by 15.13 per cent to 2,895 deals from 3,411 deals.

It was observed that shares of UAC Nigeria were the most traded on Thursday with 111.9 million units of the company’s stocks worth N643.2 million exchanging hands during the session.

UBA traded 25.0 million stocks for N159.5 million, FBN Holdings transacted 20.9 million shares worth N104.5 million, Access Bank traded 13.9 million equities for N87.5 million, while Transcorp exchanged 7.9 million stocks valued at N4.6 million.

On the performance of the major sub-sectors of the market yesterday, the industrial goods space lost 0.37 per cent, while the banking counter depreciated by 0.33 per cent.

However, the insurance index appreciated by 0.64 per cent, while the consumer goods counter improved by 0.52 per cent, with the oil/gas sector closing flat.