BUA Cement, Cadbury sell-offs trigger N444bn loss

Sell-offs in the stocks of BUA Cement (-4.76 per cent), Cadbury (-9.92 per cent) and Meyer (-9.91 per cent), among others, dragged the market capitalisation of the Nigerian Exchange Limited down by N444.32bn on Wednesday.

The negative trading resulted in a 0.48 per cent decline in the benchmark index, which stood at 143,064.57 at the close of trading.

The bearish performance marked a reversal from the N94bn gain recorded on Tuesday, which ended six straight days of losses.

Despite the downturn, overall market performance and market breadth closed positive, with 29 gainers emerging against 27 laggards.

AIICO (+10.00 per cent), NCR (+9.96 per cent) and Ikeja Hotel (+9.41 per cent) led the gainers, while Learn Africa (-10.00 per cent) recorded the steepest loss, with UPDC (-8.83 per cent) and International Breweries (-8.33 per cent) also featuring among the laggards.

Market activity improved, with total volume traded rising by 32.8 per cent to 738.4 million units, while total value traded increased by 89.9 per cent to N35.5bn.

Guaranty Trust Holding Company led both the volume and value charts with 134.1 million units traded (18.16 per cent of total volume) and N11.6bn (32.57 per cent of total trade value).

Sectoral performance was mixed, as the Insurance Index rose by 2.66 per cent, followed by the Banking Index (+0.24 per cent) and Oil & Gas (+0.17 per cent), while the Industrial (-2.03 per cent) and Consumer Goods (-1.33 per cent) indices recorded losses. The Commodity Index closed flat.

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