(Greenwich Merchant Bank): Negative sentiment continued at the Nigerian Equities Market with a decline of 0.14% as the NGX-ASI and Market Capitalisation settled at 49,625.71 points and NGN26,767.21 billions respectively.
Declines in major tickers such as FBNH (3.45%), WAPCO (3.33%) and NEM (8.91%) contributed to the fall in the market. Hence, the Year-to-Date dropped to 16.17%.
Market sentiments was bearish as volume and value traded declined by 72.85% and 37.20% to close at 86.58 million units and NGN1,170.03 million respectively. GTCO emerged as the highest volume and value traded. Market breadth stood at 1.00x as a result of equal number of gainers and losers.
On the sectoral font, the Industrial sector (0.30%), Banking sector (0.45%) and Insurance sector (1.41%) declined. While on the other hand, the Consumer Goods sector (0.02%) gained and the Oil & Gas sector (0.00%) closed flat.
Fixed Income Market
Mood in the Bond market was quiet with only two instruments trading (14-Mar-24 and 18-Mar-36 instruments). Consequently, average yield stood steady at 13.20%.
All benchmarked instruments in the NT-bills market closed down by 1bp due to the buying interest across the curve. This led to a 1bp decline in the average yield to close at 7.80% from 7.81%.
OMO market also witnessed a bullish moment, with yields trending downward across all instruments in the market leading to a 2bps dip in average yield, therefore, closing at 11.12% from 11.14%.
System liquidity opened the week short, with a 67.54% decrease to end the day at NGN33.01billion from NGN101.68billion. This resulted in a 3.0% increase in Open Buy Back and Overnight rate to close at 11.50% and 12.0%.
Exchange rate at the Investors and Exporters Window depreciated by NGNO.17/USD to end the day at NGN436.50/USD.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
