By Samuel Bankole
Nigeria’s equities market rallied for the second consecutive day this week, with Dangote Cement again leading the gain in the market with a 9.27 percent increase in value.
The main index, the All Share Index, increased by 1.65 percent to close at 65,669.29 points, compared with 64,603.69 points it closed on Monday.
Also, the market cap of equities listed on the NGX increased to N35.758 trillion from N35.177 trillion when it closed the previous day.
The total volume traded closed with an exchange of 844.716 million units valued at N9.41 billion traded in 8,922 deals.
The market breadth was positive, with 38 gainers as against 34 losers.
The NGX 30 Index increased by 1.96 percent to close at 2,396.38 points as against 2,350.23 points at the previous close.
Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 370.10 million units. Dangote Cement and BUA Cement were the key gainers, while Sterling and Fidelity were the key losers.
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Shares in Dangote Cement rose 9.27 percent, closely followed by rival Bua Cement with a 6.59 percent rally, while Nascon gained 2.39 percent.
Other gainers include Okomu Oil, which rose by 2.16 percent, and Dangote Sugar, which made a comeback from the laggard table the previous day to the gainers’ chart with 0.55 percent.
In contrast, four commercial lenders were atop the laggard table: Sterling Bank’s share dropped by 5.56 percent, Fidelity Bank was down by 4.84 percent, Access Corporation fell by 4.50 percent, and United Bank for Africa (UBA) was down by 3.92 percent.
Meanwhile, Flour Mill of Nigeria Plc (FMN) completed its series 3 commercial paper issuance to raise funds to meet its working capital requirements.
The order book recorded N144.37 billion in bids, representing an oversubscription of 262 percent.
The issuance was well received, as all investor classes were well represented on the order book, with strong showings from banks (39.8 percent) and pension fund administrators (40.8 percent).
The company, however, raised N55.00 billion at a 239-day maturity in the first tranche and is looking at launching a second tranche to sequence the repayment patterns.
(omayowa@globalfinancialdigest.com; Newsroom: +234 8033 964 138
