Greenwich Merchant Bank): The Nigerian Equity market closed bearish today as the NGX-ASI and market capitalisation declined by 0.12% to settle at 50,014.60 points and NGN26.98 trillion respectively. UBA (2.78%), MTNN (0.50%), GTCO (0.49%) and ZENITHBANK (0.23%) contributed to the overall negative movement in the market today. Thus, bringing Year-To-Date down to 17.09%.
Traded activities was mixed as volume traded decreased by 52.16% (133.59 million units) while value traded increased by 17.06% (NGN2,437.63 million). UBA had the highest volume traded while MTNN had the highest value traded. Market breadth remained positive at 1.33x owing to twenty (20) gainers and fifteen (15) laggers.
On the other hand, Insurance (0.61%) and Industrial sector (0.10%) gained while Banking (0.62%) and Consumer Goods sector (0.03%) declined. The Oil and Gas sector remained unchanged.
Fixed Income Market
Activities at the mid and long end of the curve swayed the direction of the bond market as average yields increased by 7bps to settle at 12.84% from 12.77% recorded the previous day. The 27-Mar-35 and 17-Mar27 emerged as the most sold with 46bps and 37bps movement respectively.
Marginal decline was experienced in the NT-Bills market as average yields fell by 1bp to rest at 7.80% from 7.81%.
The average yields in the OMO market fell substantially by 81bps as increased buying pressures in the 7-Mar-23 instrument (3.24%) pulled the average yields down to 11.19% from 11.39% recorded the yesterday.
System liquidity increased by 108.87% to settle at NGN40.79billion from NGN19.53billion. Hence, open-buy-back and overnight rate dropped to 11.00% and 11.50% respectively.
The Naira exchange rate at the I&E window declined by NGN1.25/USD to close at NGN430.25/USD from NGN429.00/USD.
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
