Renewed buying interests in cement major – Lafarge (+9.95%) as a result of news surrounding its intention to settle its indebtedness to its related entity largely masked the impact of aggressive selling in various counters into the close as the ASI posted a -2bps performance. Zenith (-99bps) succumbed to sell pressure late in the day whilst Stanbic (-95bps) retreated on offshore related cross among the banks. FO (-996bps) retreated post-divestment of its major shareholder, Femi Otedola whilst local buying in Access (+299bps) alongside bargain hunting in Guaranty (+81bps) salvaged some important points on the day.
Block trades recorded on the day were in Guaranty ($1.36m), NB ($1m) and Lafarge ($0.9m) and they involved offshore interests. Ytd loss on the index stood at -5.30%. We expect the market to firm up at current levels
