Don't Miss

Nigerian Stock Exchange Watch: ASI (+1.24%) Gains as Dangote Cement (+5%), Bluechips Surge

By Afolabi Ogunde on July 23, 2012

The Nigerian Stock Exchange gained a whopping 1.24%, its sixth highest daily appreciation on the back of a strong performance by the bourse’s most capitalized company, Dangote Cement, which gained maximum points allowed of 5%. Other bluechips that drove the performance of the bourse today included Conoil (+4.97%), Dangote Sugar (+4.84%), and Oando (+4.15%).

Portland Paints (+4.85%) also gained strongly on the back of an announced merger with UAC Plc.

The banking sub-index fell marginally, shedding 0.04% in today’s session as Access (-4.8%), FCMB (-4.85%), Fidelity (-3.01%) and Sterling (-4.20%) shed points in the day’s session.

On the positive side, UBA (+2.63%), First Bank (+0.85%) and GTBank (+0.83%) all gained. Diamond (+2.59%) and Union Bank (+0.94%) also closed in positive territory.

Consumer Goods sub-index fell by 0.08%, whilst the Insurance sub-index was down 1.72% on the back of losses in Mansard Insurance (formerly GTAssure) and Custodian.

The Year-to-Date (YTD) performance of the Nigerian Stock Exchange improved to 12.79%, whilst the volume of shares traded today were 443 million, due to a large block of shares that traded in Union Diagnostic over 250 million.

Gainers Chart