(Greenwich Merchant Bank): The Nigerian Equity market closed week with another positive performance as the All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalization grew by 0.15% to end the week at 44,396.73 and 24.18 trillion.
Strong Performance from Academy Press (9.77%). Sterling Bank (3.95%), Mutual Benefit (3.57%), Transcorp (2.83%), and Dangote Sugar (2.52%) improved the Year to Date by 15 bps to close at 3.98%.
However, Market activity were the inverse of the ASI as the Volume and Value traded decreased by 20.24% (95.08 billion) and 41.14% (1.88 billion) with Fidelity bank (26.59 million) and Airtel Africa (NGN 978.82 million) ranking the highest in volumes and value.
Sector Performance was driven by positive returns from the Industrial index (0.77%) and the Consumer Goods index (0.15%) while the Banking Index (0.35%) and the Insurance Index (3.67%) pulled towards the red with the Oil and Gas Index unchanged.
Fixed Income Market
Mixed sentiments took rein in the Bond market with average yield closing the week 2bps lower from yesterday to settle at 14.35%. The 18-APR-2037 instrument had the highest decrease of -28bps while the 23-MAR-2025 instrument emerged as the most sold (+36bps).
On the other hand, the NT-bills and OMO market closed the day on a mild note as we saw minimal movements in the benchmarked listed instruments across the yield curve.
This led average yield of both the NT- bills and OMO market end the day the same figure as yesterday, 10.46% and 10.91% respectively.
System liquidity continued its positive change, moving from a negative balance of NGN261.87billion to close the day at a negative balance of NGN134.61billion.
Consequently, this pushed the Open Buy Back and Overnight rate up by 16bps and 17bps to close at 16.33% and 16.50% apiece.
Once again, Naira depreciated both at the CBN Official Spot rate and Investors and Exporters Window, rising by NGN0.04/USD and NGN0.54/ USD to end the day at NGN437.28/USD and NGN441.67/U
Ifunanya Ikueze is an Engineer, Safety Professional, Writer, Investor, Entrepreneur and Educator.
