(Greenwich Merchant Bank): Bullish trend continued as the Nigerian equity market opened the month with a 0.11% gain. Increased buying pressures in large cap stocks such as FLOURMILL (2.75%), BUAFOODS (2.69%), and UBA (0.69%) contributed to the increase. Subsequently, Year-to-Date grew to 16.79%.
On the other hand, market sentiment was bearish as volume and value traded depreciated by 37.52% (229.12 million) and 45.93% (NGN1.75million) respectively.
STERLNBANK emerged as the highest volume traded for two consecutive days with 108.70 million units, while GTCO took the spot of the highest value traded with NGN680.45million.
Market breadth was positive at 1.08x owing to thirteen (13) gainers and twelve (12) laggers.
Performance across sectors was driven by losses in the Industrial sector (0.98%), Oil & Gas (0.33%), Consumer Goods sector (0.09%). On the other hand, Banking sector (0.43%), and the Insurance Sector (0.54%) closed positive.
Fixed Income Market
Only one instrument (23-Mar-20225) traded in the Bond market, although wasn’t enough to sway the average performance in the market.
Average yield maintained status quo closing at 13.15%, same as yesterday`s figure. With marginal buying interest in few instruments in the NT-bills market, average yield movements remained flat, retaining the previous day mood to close the day at 8.04%.
However, the OMO market moved in a different direction, with bullish interests in most of the listed instruments overshadowing the market. This resulted in average yield declining by 6bps, ending the day at 11.16%.
System liquidity declined by 51.45% to settle at NGN368.47billion from NGN759.02billion. The Open Buy Back and Overnight rate also rose to 7.00% and 7.50% from 8.00% and 8.67%.
At the Investors and Exporters Window, Naira rose by NGN0.56/USD, depreciating to NGN430.00/USD
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
