(Greenwich Merchant Bank): The local bourse continued its positive bull run to close on a positive note as increase in prices of equities with large market turnover like GEREGU (5.45%), BUACEMENT (2.64%), FIDELITY (3.26%) and OANDO (2.33%) drove the market higher.
This resulted in the NGX-ASI and market capitalization to improve by 5.02% which settled at 44,859.78 point and NGN24.43 trillion respectively. As a result, the Year-to-Date closed at 5.02%.
Market sentiment was majorly negative as volume trade declined by 45.95% to close at 86.06 million units while value traded rose by 19.41% to settle at NGN3,258.85 million respectively.
GEREGU emerged as the equity with the highest volume and value traded. Market breadth remained negative at 0.67x with twelve (12) gainers and eighteen (18) losers.
The sectoral performance was bullish as the Insurance sector (0.92%), Oil & Gas sector (0.32%) and Industrial sector (1.14%) closed positive. While the bears were dominant in the Banking sector (0.93%) and Consumer Goods sector (0.39%) to bring a negative close.
Fixed Income Market
Todays trading session was relatively gentle in the bond market with selling pressure at the short and mid end of the yield curve. Only two instrument traded, the 17-Mar-27 (+14bps) and 20-Nov-29 (+25bps) instrument.
This resulted in an increase in average yields by 3bps therefore settling at 14.52% from 14.49%.
There was heavy movement in the Nigerian Treasury bills and OMO market as listed benchmarked instruments increased significantly. This led to a 83bps increase in the average yield of the NT-bills and 91bps increase in the average yields of the OMO market to settle at 11.28% and 10.89% respectively.
System liquidity declined further, closing at a negative balance of NGN146.22billion from a negative balance of NGN213.20billion.
However, the Open Buy Back and Overnight rate remained the flat to close at 16.34% and 16.51%
Naira closed flat at the Importers & Exporters Window to remain the NGN441.67/USD
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
