Sell-offs in the Nigerian equity market have triggered a N622 billion loss in the market capitalization of Cement firms since the beginning of February, as wary investors offload.
A review of the performance of the cement stocks on NSE revealed that the market capitalization of Dangote, BUA, and Lafarge from the open of trade on February 1 till the close of trading activities on February 22 has declined from N7.18 trillion to N6.56 trillion.
How they have declined
Dangote Cement has declined from N4.02 trillion to N3.75 trillion. However, the market cap of BUA Cement has also declined from N2.68 trillion to N2.44 trillion, while that of Lafarge has declined from N483 billion to N371 billion. Combined the three cement giants have lost N622 billion in market capitalization.
Dangote Cement lost the most with N270 billion followed by BUA with N240 billion and Lafarge with N112 billion. As a percentage of market capitalization, Lafarge is down by a whopping 23%.
Market activity
At the end of trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, the shares of Lafarge declined by 8% to close at N23 per share, as investors sell off 5,639,555 ordinary shares of the company worth N132,728,987.
On the flip side, shares of Dangote and BUA Cement closed flat at the end of trading activities, as shares of these leading cement producing companies remain unchanged at N220 per share and N72 per share respectively.
The industrial index to which the cement stocks belong to have fallen by 7% year to date compared to the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index -0.21%. Nigerian stocks are likely to close the month of February in negative territory, the first YTD losses since September 2020.