At the end of today’s trading session, the Nigerian equities market closed positive as the benchmark index improved by 0.16% to close at 40,829.15 points.
This was mainly due to buy pressures in bellwether stocks such as PRESCO (+5.92%) and WAPCO (+1.52%). Consequently, the YTD improved to 1.39% as market capitalisation increased by ₦33.33 billion to close at ₦21.28 trillion.
The sectoral performance strengthened as three of the five indices under coverage improved, the insurance index declined by 1.24% on MANSARD (-5.22%) while the Oil & Gas index closed flat. The Banking index, the biggest gainer, improved by 0.70% on UBA (+1.94%). The Industrial and Consumer Goods indices followed suit, rising by 0.08% and 0.06% on WAPCO (+1.52%) and INTBREW (+1.11%) respectively.
Investor sentiment strengthened in today’s trading session, as market breadth increased to 1.15x from 0.95x. This was illustrated by the advance of 23 stocks, led by UPL (+9.92%) and PRESCO (+5.92%) and the decline of 20 stocks, led by BOCGAS (-9.87%) and CAVERTON (-9.71%). Activity level strengthened as total volume and value increased by 102.74% and 203.95% as investors exchanged about 812.30 million units of shares worth over N10.58 billion.
We expect bullish momentum to persist in the next trading session as the equities market still presents decent opportunities for investors chasing positive real return on investments.
Fixed Income
There was relatively bearish sentiment across the bond yield curve as 3 of the 4 bond yields under coverage closed higher while the yield on FGN-APR-2023 compressed by 2bps. The yields on the FGN-APR-2024, FGN-JAN-2026 and FGN-JUL-2030 increased by 16bps, 49bps and 18bps respectively.
Treasury bill yields for the 91 and 182-day papers closed flat at 3.37% and 4.10% respectively while the 364-day paper compressed by 50bps to close at 6.98%.
We expect a further decline in yields in the next trading session on the back of huge demand from investors and the deliberate efforts of the DMO to reduce borrowing costs.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
- Positive Performance Persists in the Local Bourse, NGX ASI Gains 16bps
- Bearish Sentiment across the Bond Yield Curve
- Bullish Performance in Global Stocks
- Positive Performance in Commodities Market
- Mixed Sentiment in African Stocks
