Again, investors’ profiteering activities on Dangote Cement causes cold market shivers as Nigeria market index goes down 2.4%  

As has always been the case with the stock, investors seeking to take profit on Dangote Cement piled some pressure on the stock Wednesday and caused some cold shivers down the market halting a positive bull run that had lasted for four days and causing the All-Share Index (ASI) to shed 2.4 percent to settle at 32,449.22 points.

Dangote cement recorded the highest depreciation (-6.8%) among market bellwethers, NESTLE (-2.1%) and FBNH (-4.7%) that fell as a result of profit taking during Wednesday’s trade.

Consequently, market capitalisation declined by N287.6 billion to N11.8 trillion, while year-to-date loss worsened to – 15.3 percent.

Activity level ended the day mixed as volume traded advanced 105.7 percent to 380.7 million units while value traded fell 0.8 percent to N3.2 billion. FCMB (142.7m units), ACCESS (90.8m units) and TRANSCORP (16.4m units) were the top traded stocks by volume while the top traded stocks by value were ACCESS (N726.3m), NIGERIAN BREWERIES (N330.2m) and FCMB (N221.1m).

Performance across sectors turned bearish as 3 of 5 major indices closed in the red. The banking index advanced the most, up 0.5 percent as a result of buy interests in ZENITH (+0.8%), GUARANTY (+0.5%) and FIDELITY (+0.3%) while the insurance index rose 0.4 percent on account of gains in NEM (+2.8%) and WAPIC (+7.3%).

On the flip side, the industrial and consumer goods indices shed 4.1 percent and 1.2 percent respectively following sell-offs in DANGCEM (-6.8%), NESTLE (-2.1%) and UNILEVER (-5.8%) while the oil & gas index fell by 0.2% on the back of profit taking in OANDO (-2.8%).

Investor sentiment as measured by market breadth (advance/decline ratio) strengthened to 1.1x from 0.8x recorded yesterday as 17 stocks appreciated against 16 decliners.

The best performing stocks were DIAMOND (+9.4%), LAWUNION (+7.7%) and NIGERINS (+7.7%) while TRANSEXP (-8.5%), REDSTAREX (-7.6%) and DANGCEM (-6.8%) led laggards.