(Greenwich Merchant Bank): Local bourse continued its bearish trend due to profit taking in large cap stock like CADBURY (2.99%), UNILEVER (2.59%), MTNN (0.50%), GTCO (0.25%) and ZENITH (0.23%). As a result, NGX-ASI and Market Capitalisation declined by 0.07% to close at 49,642.69 points and NGN26.78 trillion respectively. Thus, the Year-to-Date dropped to 16.21%.
On the other hand, market sentiment was mixed as volume traded depreciated by 45.56% to close at 125.91 million units, while value appreciated by 40.56% to close at NGN 193.46 million. MBENEFIT stood as the highest volume traded stock with 25.34 million units while MTNN took the spot of the highest value traded with NGN1.45billion. Market breadth was negative at 0.93x owing to thirteen (13) gainers and fourteen (14)
laggers.
Performance across sectors was broadly negative as the Oil & Gas sector (0.10%), Consumer Goods sector (0.002%) and Insurance sector (0.08%) recorded losses whereas Banking sector (0.13%) recorded the sole gain for the day. Industrial sector (0.00%) remained unchanged.
Fixed Income Market
Bullish sentiments persisted in the Bond market as performance in the 22-Jan-2026(-25bps) and 21-Jan-2042 (-12bps) instruments determined the movement in the market. This resolved the average yield to 13.13%
from 13.15%.
On the other hand, average yield in the NT-bills and OMO market closed up by 26bps and 51bps to end the day at 8.04% and 11.22%. With a 56bps increase, the 09-Mar-2023 instrument closed the day as the most sold instrument in the NT-bills market while the 02-May-2023 instrument with 79bps emerged as the highest increase in the OMO market.
System liquidity settled at NGN67.63billion at the close of today`s session. Nevertheless, the Open Buy Back and Overnight rate also declined from 9.50% and 10.00% to close at 9.00% and 9.67%.
At the Investors and Exporters Window the Naira depriciated by NGN0.67/ USD, depreciating to NGN431.00/USD from NGN430.33/USD.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
