Profit-taking in Dangote cement, BUA, WAPCO down equities market by N199bn

Investors’ profit-taking in Dangote cement plc, BUA Cement Plc and Lafarge WAPCO depreciated the equities market by N199 billion on Tuesday.

Specifically, the market capitalisation closed on Tuesday at N12.769 trillion as against N12.968 trillion it closed on Monday.

Precisely, the All-Share Index declined by 1.5per cent to 24,479.22 basis points – the biggest declined since falling by 1.5 per cent on April 6th, 2020 from 24,858.89 basis points it closed on Monday.

Sentiments in the domestic bourse turned negative, as sell-offs of top cement players – BUA Cement that dropped by 10per cent, Dangote Cement down by 0.8 per cent and Lafarge Wapco depreciated by 7.4 per cent – triggered the market’s loss.

Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -1.6per cent and -7.4per cent, respectively.

The total volume of trades increased by 76.8 per cent to 280.67 million units, valued at N3.14 billion and exchanged in 4,464 deals. FBNH was the most traded stock by volume at 68.21 million units while NB was the most traded stock by value at N805.42 million.

The sectoral performance was broadly negative as the Industrial Goods (-7.5 per cent), Banking (-1.3 per cent), Oil & Gas (-0.4 per cent) and Insurance (-0.04 per cent) indices all closed in the red; the Consumer Goods (+0.2 per cent) index was the sole gainer.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative (0.3x), as 34 tickers declined, relative to 10 gainers. BUA Cement (-10 per cent) and Cadbury (-10.0 per cent) were the top losers of the day, while Neimeth (+10 per cent) and Okomu Oil (+9.9 per cent) recorded the largest gains.

“The equities market closed on a negative note today on the back of the losses recorded in most sectors.

“While we believe the risk-off sentiment on the back of weak oil price as well as the impact of Coronavirus could continue to weigh in on equities market, we opine that this may be one of the best periods to start picking some of the quality names with a medium to long term investment horizon,” analysts at Investmentone research explained.