Ruth Okwumbu-Imafidon, a journalist with Legit.ng, has over a decade of experience in business reporting across digital and mainstream media.

The Nigerian stock market finally crossed the N82 trillion mark on Thursday, July 17, 2025.

This surge was driven by a rally across several major stocks, including the giant majors, Dangote Cement Plc, and BUA Cement Plc.

The Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index opened for trading at 128,967.08 basis points and gained 1,316.79 basis points or 1.02 per cent to close at 130,283.87 basis points.

The several stock rallies also pushed market cap past N82.418 trillion, growing by N833 billion from the N81.585 trillion it closed the previous trading day, This Day reports.

The sectoral performance showed a mix with some stocks gaining and others losing.

Among the top gainers, the NGX industrial goods index gained 9.1% while the NGX Consumer Goods gained 0.5%.

Despite the surge among a few banking stocks, the NGX Banking Index lost 2.3%, the NGX Insurance Index dipped by 0.9%, and the NGX Oil & Gas index dropped by 0.6%.

On the other side, some stocks shed some value.

The volume of stocks traded dropped to 1.193 billion units, spread across 37,418 deals, with a valuation of N42.756 billion.

Among the top stocks traded were:

Analysts at Afrinvest Limited predicted a modest performance on the stock market after the surge. They said:

“We anticipate a modest performance on the bourse, as selective buying offsets profit booking.”

Despite the surge in market capitalisation, investor sentiment remains overall negative as measured by the market breadth. This is because 30 stocks gained while 46 stocks lost.

Dangote, BUA cement quote higher prices

In related news, the two cement majors, Dangote Cement and BUA Cement, increased the price for 50kg bags of cement.

Legit.ng reported that a 50kg bag of cement costs between N9,500 and N12,500, depending on the brand and your location.

Since the start of 2025, cement prices have failed to return to the earlier price of N8,500 despite government intervention.

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Proofreading by James Ojo, copy editor at Legit.ng.

Source: Legit.ng