(Greenwich Merchant Bank): The Nigerian equities market recorded its third loss in a row as the NGX-ASI and market capitalisation declined by 0.12% to close the trading day at 52,122.00 points and NGN28.11 trillion respectively. Profit taking by investors in equities such as INTBREW (9.17%), WAPCO (1.89%), UBA (0.68%) and GTCO (0.24%) contributed to decline in the market. Hence, the Year-to-Date fell to 22.02%.
Bearish sentiments engulfed the market as the volume traded dropped by 36.23% to settle at 151.94 million units while value traded recorded a 35.34% decline to level at NGN2,157.01 million. GTCO was the most active equity with the highest volume and value traded. Market breadth stood at 0.59x resulting from thirteen (13) gainers and twenty-two (22) laggers.
Performance of the sectors were mixed as the Consumer Goods sector (0.41%), Banking sector (0.36%) and Industrial sector (0.14%) closed in red while Oil & Gas sector (0.09%) and Insurance sector (0.79%) were positive.
Fixed Income Market
Although there were few buy interest in the Bond market, interest in the 26-Apr-29 and 22-Jan-26 instruments determined the performance of the market. Subsequently, yields closed up by 5bps to 12.07% from 12.02%.
A calm mood remained in the Nigeria Treasury bills as no movement was seen across the benchmarked listed instruments. Therefore, average yield stood at 7.23% for the third consecutive trading day. Replicating the mood in the Nigeria Treasury bills market, the OMO market closed flat to retain its average yield at 9.05%.
System liquidity was estimated at a negative balance of NGN188.63 billion from a negative balance of NGN282.46 billion. The Open Buy Back declined from 14.83% to 14.75% while the Overnight maintained its previous close of 15.0%.
The Naira depreciated further at the Investors’ and Exporters’ Window (I&EW) to close at NGN426.00/USD from NGN426.58/USD yesterday.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
