(Greenwich Merchant Bank): Today`s trading session closed in the red as the All-Share Index reduced by 0.21%, causing the index to land at 43,745.73 points. Dips seen in SEPLAT (8.33%), BUAFOODS (4.80%), STERLNBANK (2.74%), UACN (6.15%) and JBERGER (9.46%) majorly contributed to this loss and as a result, the NGX Year-to-Date now stands at 2.41%.
However, market activities improved as volume and value traded increased by 12.25% and 20.54%. Consequently, 172.87 million units were traded, with a NGN4.01 billion turnover. SEPLAT emerged as the highest traded equity of the day in terms of value with a turnover of NGN2.53 billion, while ACCESSCORP was the highest traded equity by volume with 24.68 million units traded.
Sentiment recorded in the market was negative as fourteen (14) gainers and nineteen (19) laggers lent themselves to a market breadth of 0.74x.
Performance across sectors was split, as losses were recorded in the Oil & Gas (4.31%), Consumer Goods (1.58%) and Insurance (0.43%) sectors while the Industrial (1.33%) and Banking (0.07%) sectors recorded gains
Fixed Income Market
In the NT-Bills market, minimal movements were witnessed resulting in the same average yield as yesterday at 10.98%. At the other side, all benchmarked instruments listed in the OMO market had nil changes which led the average yield to retain its previous day figure at 10.88%.
The Bond market also mirrored the same sentiment with the NT-Bills market as investors cherry picked instruments. This elicited to the 2bps increase in average yield to settle at 14.76% from 14.74%.
System liquidity increased by 26.41% from NGN220.74billion to NGN279.05billion. Consequently, the Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight rate (OVN) declined by 5.17% and 5.34% to close the day at 9.33% and 9.83% respectively.
Naira depreciated both at the CBN Official Spot rate and Investors’ and Exporters’ Window (I&EW), increasing by NGN0.12/USD and NGN3.00/USD apiece. At the CBN Official Spot rate, exchange rate moved from NGN438.02/USD to NGN438.50/USD, while at the I&EW it closed at
NGN446.00/USD from NGN443.00/USD
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
