After five consecutive bearish days, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) pulled away from the danger zone following N177 billion collective profit posted by some nine stocks.
Dangote Cement Plc (Dangcem) led the gaining camp to give impetus to the market drive in a struggle with nine other securities that closed the day negative led by BUACEMENT.
The development came as a fulfillment of earlier forecast by market pundits who predicted fund inflow into the equity assets as rising inflation threatens other investment windows returns in the midst of more earnings being release to the market, positive news of coronavirus vaccine on oil price and impact of CBN policies on the economy.
The market, which had remained in the red territory for five days in a row got respite on Thursday as the market performance index, the All-Share Index (ASI), rose by 338.74 points or 1.40 per cent to close at 24,512.27 basis points.
After days of consecutive depreciation, market capitalization followed suit with the recorded N177 billion profit recouped by investors to close the session higher at N12.787 trillion.
Analysts noted that 10 per cent price appreciation recorded in the shares of Dangote significantly moved up the aggregate equities market valuation since Dangcem remains the most capitalized listed company at the bourse.
Asked what factor triggered the positive sentiment on the most capitalized stock, Kayode Eseyin, chief analyst at Cardinal Stone explained that investors’ reaction followed earlier disclosure made by the company to release its HY 2020 financial report very soon.
“Actually, despite the pandemic, investors expect Dangote Cement to release positive numbers for the Q2 and this is responsible for what was seen on Thursday,” he said.
He added that aside this, investors’ massive patronage of Dangcem shares may be coming on the back of share buyback action that the company promised to embark on this year.
“Investors believe that this will come up in the Q3 and we are already in the quarter. I believe investors are positioning for the Dangote Cement buyback,” Eseyin added.
The positive outlook of the day notwithstanding, market turnover noticeably decline as traded volume and value plunged by 59.2 per cent and 53.32 per cent respectively.
It was however a tie between the bulls and the bears, a repetition Wednesday’s trend, as nine gainers emerged against nine decliners to create a flat breadth, while 12 other stocks closed the session with unchanged prices.
Dangcem led the gainers by adding N12.20 to close at N134.2 per share. MTN Nigeria followed with N1 rise in its price to close at N120 per share. Others gainers include CUSTODIAN, gaining N0.15 to close at N5; AFRIPRUD and FBNH, adding N0.11 and N0.05 to close at N4.12 and N5 per share respectively.
On the flip side, another cement manufacturing company, BUACEMENT led the league of decliners by losing N1.45 to close at N40 but Dangote Sugar partied with it by losing N0.30 to close at N11.7 per share.
NEIMETH trailed lost N0.10 to close at N1.40 while UBA and GUARANTY shed N0.05 each to close at N6.10 and N21.50 per share respectively.
In terms of turnover, Dangcem led with 3.255 million shares valued at N430.515 million traded in 270 deals. Again, MTN Nigeria followed by trading 3.125 shares worth 374.924 million in 132 deals and ZenithBank trailed with 17.937 shares worth N278.97 million that exchanged hands in 539 transactions.
FBNH was however investors’ favourite as it recorded the highest volume of trade of 42.675 million shares worth 211.27 million in 273 deals. CUSTODIAN pushed 20.036 million share at N100.178 million in 8 transactions while ZenithBank occupied the third place on the chart.
At the close of the day, investors collectively traded 164.289 million shares worth N2.12 billion in 2,986 transactions relative to 402.636 million shares valued at N4.554 billion that exchanged hands in 3,252 deals in the preceding session.
