On Wednesday, the equities market recovered from two days of losses, with investors gaining N338 billion. The Nigerian Exchange Limited market capitalisation fell by N757 billion following the demotion of Nigeria from Frontier market category to unclassified market status by rating agency FTSE Russell due to investors’ inability to repatriate funds.
According to FTSE, despite the harmonisation of the sectors of the Nigerian foreign exchange market, “the lack of liquidity in the I&E FX Window continues to adversely impact the ability of international institutional to replicate benchmark changes.”
However, the equities market recovered with a N338bn gain on Wednesday, thanks to investor interest in Dangote Sugar and NASCON Allied Industries shares, which increased by 10%.
The upswing was also driven by robust earnings reported by major lender, United Bank for Africa (+9.78 per cent), which helped alleviate bearish sentiment surrounding banking stocks in the aftermath of the downgrade.
The NGX All-Share Index rose by 0.93 per cent to close at 67,378.88 basis points and the market capitalisation stood at N 36.876tn at the close of trading. The NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, and NGX Consumer Goods indexes rose by 4.58 per cent, 2.27 per cent, and 1.27 per cent, respectively. However, the NGX Oil/Gas and NGX Industrial indices fell by 0.12 per cent and 0.03 per cent, respectively.
A total of 569,626,853 million units of shares worth over N8.69bn were traded on the NGX in 8,404 deals. Market sentiment trended positive as reflected in 34 gainers and 24 losers.
Both Dangote Sugar and NASCON had closed at N57.20 and N51.70 respectively on Wednesday. The duo were in the middle of a merger with Dangote Rice Limited. NAHCO, United Capital’s shares also rose by 10 per cent to close trading at N23.65 and N16.50 each. Also in the top five gainers league was indigenous conglomerate, Transnational Corporation Plc, whose shares gained 9.98 per cent each to close at N6.61.
On the losers table were Courtville whose shares depreciated by 10 per cent to close at N0.54, ABC Transport shares lost 9.80 per cent in value to close at N0.92 each. Eatery, Tantalizers also got on the losers table as its shares fell 9.30 per cent each to close at N0.39. The stocks of LearnAfrica and Omatek depreciated by 8.51 per cent and 8.33 per cent respectively to close at N3.01 and N0.44 per share.
In terms of trading activities, Oando led with 143,445,074 million shares worth N1.39bn exchanged, followed by Accesscorp with 63,556,965 units valued at N1.07bn traded. Over 39 million units of Fidelity Bank shares worth N313.78m were also exchanged.
