Investors Sink N4.8bn In Dangote Cement As Stocks Fall

Bargain hunting investors poured a whopping N4.84 billion in the shares of Dangote Cement despite pervading volatility, which has, in recent weeks, slowed initial bullish momentum witnessed in first and second quarter of this year.

At the trading session on Thursday, investors interested in good dividend yield exchanged a total of 16,124,597 units of the stock valued at N4.84billion at the price of N532.0 per unit, making it the most traded stock by value.

However, the heavy cross deals in Dangote Cement could not lift the market, as the stock closed flat. Share price of the stock which opened the year at N290.0 per share has remained steady at N532 per share since September 9.

Thus, the stock market reversed yesterday’s gains as selloff in FBNH (-9.9%), GTCO (-0.32%), and Oando (-4.76%) erased gains in Zenith Bank (+0.82%), UBA (+2.71%) and ACCESSCORP (+0.51%), resulting a 0.2 per cent decline in benchmark All Shares Index (ASI).

As a result, the NGX ASI closed lower at 98,003.75 points while the market capitalisation lost N130.54billion to close at N56.32 trillion. As a result, month-to+date and year-to-date returns moderated to -1.5 per cent and +31.1 per cent, respectively.

The total volume traded increased by 30.9 per cent to 473.09million units, valued at N11.36 billion, and exchanged in 9,848 deals. JAPAULGOLD was the most traded stock by volume at 106.66 million units, while Dangote Cement was the most traded stock by value at N4.84billion.

Sectoral performance was bearish as the Banking (-0.6%), Insurance (-0.6%), Consumer Goods (-0.3%), Oil & Gas (-0.1%), and Industrial Goods (-0.1%) indices declined. A total of 25 stocks lost relative to 24 gainers.

HONYFLOUR (-10.0%) and FBNH (-9.9%) topped the losers’ list, while ABCTRANS (+10.0%) and MCNICHOLS (+10.0%) recorded the most significant gains of the day.