Nigerian Stock Exchange Watch: Dangote Cement drives Bourse to Loss, UBA records over 32% Appreciation

The Stock Market buckled today under the weight of Dangote Cement (-4.10%), which lost major points. Dangote Cement being the most capitalized stock on the bourse causes significant momentum swings in either direction depending on its positive or negative performance in the day’s trading.

The banking sub-sector was dominated by the bulls. UBA continued its rally, bagging 4.83% in today’s session and bringing its gains over the past two weeks to over 32%.

Sterling Bank (+4.12%) also recorded  a significant price gain in today’s trading. Most other stocks recorded negligible but upward price movement, including Zenith (+1.38%), First Bank (+1.14%), GTBank (0.57%).

Skye (+1.60%), Access (+0.88%), Fidelity (+0.74%), FCMB (+1.20%) and Stanbic (+0.56%) also recorded marginal gains.

Other infrastructure sector stocks down today, apart from headliner Dangote Cement, included Lafarge (-3.18%), and Ashaka (-2.38%).

Across the consumer goods sector, Dangote Flour (+2.34%) and Dangote Sugar (+3.85%) represented two out of three Dangote subsidiaries in the green, whilst the third NASCON (-4.70%) reversed on yesterday’s gains.

GTAssur (+4.88%) and Goldlink (+3.51%) were the stocks to beat in the Insurance sub-sector today. Custodian, Continental Re, Prestige and Intercontinental Wapic were the companies trailing the sub-sector today.

Todays top gainers were:

Stocks with the largest price drops today were:

The following banking stocks dominated the activity charts today: