Nigeria Stock Exchange Watch: Bears Resurface as Dangote Cement Drags Bourse

The market took a beating today driven primarily by losses sustained in Dangote Cement, which is the Exchange’s most capitalized stock. Institutional sales led to the stock losing the full 5% allowed and this in part led to the depreciation of the All Share Index by            1.63% to settle at 20,329.62.

The banking sub-sector was up 0.73% in today’s trading. UBA recovered well today as it gained 4.88%. Other gainers included Sterling (+5%), Access (+4.07%), Skye (1.52%), Stanbic (1.45%) and FCMB (0.5%).

The top tier banks recorded mix performances adding and dropping marginal points across the board: First Bank (+0.1%), Zenith (-0.16%), and GTBank (-0.07%).

The Breweries sub-sector was wholly bearish as NB (-0.51%), Guinness (-0.09%) and Champion Breweries were on the decline (-4.96%).

The Insurance sub-sector  depreciated by 0.47% due to losses in GT Assur (-4.5%), Prestige (-5%), Goldlink (-4.55%), and Aiico (-3.85%). Gainers in the sub-sector were Continental Re (+4.76%), and Custodian (+3.23%).

Te volume of shares (222 million) traded today fell by 74% from yesterday’s session and the volume (N 1.4 billion) was 45% down as well.

Top 5 price gainers for today included:

The top 5 stocks with price decline included:

Activity leaders in the market today were: