Chinwendu Obienyi
Santa Claus failed to show up on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Tuesday as traders rounded off transactions in preparation for Christmas celebration as sell-pressures in Stanbic, GT Bank and Dangote Sugar ensured the market’s year-to-date (YTD) returns declined further to -16.99 per cent.
At the close of trading on Tuesday, the market’s All Share Index (ASI) sustained its bearish run, depreciating by 0.99 per cent to close at 26,090.88 points, while investors lost N11 billion as market capitalisation settled at N12.595 trillion.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses climbed further to -3.37 and -16.99 per cent, respectively. Meanwhile, total volume of trades expanded by 71.83 per cent to 324.40 million units, valued at N1.66 billion, and exchanged in 1,993 deals.
Across sectorial performances, the loss recorded in the Insurance (-0.71 per cent) index was more than enough to neuter the modest gains across the Consumer Goods (+0.13 per cent), Oil & Gas (+0.31 per cent), and Banking (+0.04 per cent) indices, respectively while the Industrial Goods index was flat. Market breadth was negative as 12 stocks depreciated in value while 10 stocks appreciated. Law Union topped the losers’ chart with 9.09 per cent to close at 0.50 kobo per share, Wapic followed with 8.33 per cent to close at 0.33 kobo, Dangote Sugar fell by 5.54 per cent to close at N13.56, FCMB declined to 4.76 per cent to close at N1.80 while Jaiz Bank dropped 4.29 per cent to close at 0.67 kobo.
Meanwhile the NSE has announced that it is placing the shares of Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) on full suspension.
In a notification obtained from the Exchange’s website, the NSE said the suspension had become imperative to prevent trading in the shares of the Company beyond the Effective Date (the date the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Court Sanction will be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission) of the Scheme of merger between the Company and Obu Cement Company.
Shareholders of CCNN had earlier this month at the court-ordered general meeting in Abuja approved the merger of the two companies.
Chairman, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc, Alhaji Abdus Samad Rabiu, said shareholders of the merging entities were well positioned to benefit from the stronger position of the enlarged company due to greater economies of scale and enhanced operating and administrative efficiencies which are expected to accrue from the proposed merger.