Local Bourse Starts The Week In Red

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Local Bourse Begins Week Higher Amid Election Atmosphere
Local Bourse Begins Week Higher Amid Election Atmosphere

At the end of today’s trading section, the Nigerian equities market closed negative as the benchmark index declined by 0.09% to close at 43,270.94 points.

This was mainly due to buy pressures in bellwether stocks such PRESCO (-1.24%) and ZENITHBANK (-0.62%). Consequently, the YTD return decreased to 7.45% as market capitalisation reduced by ₦19.49 billion to close at  ₦22.58trillion.

The sectoral performance significantly weakened as four of the five indices under coverage declined, while the Insurance index improved by 0.82% on AIICO  (+8.57%). The Oil & Gas, the biggest loser, decreased by 0.56% on OANDO (-2.78%). The Consumer Goods, Banking and Industrial indices followed suit, declining by 0.23%, 0.18 and 0.01% on FLOURMILL (-0.34%) and ZENITHBANK (-0.62%) respectively.

Investor sentiment weakened in today’s trading session, as market breadth declined to 0.67x from 0.75x. This was illustrated by the advance of 14 stocks, led by AIICO (+8.57%) and LIVINGTRUST (+7.95%) and the decline of 21 stocks, led by UPDC (-9..92%) and UPDCREIT (-9.90%). Activity level weakened as the total volume and value declined by 30.20% and 34.05% as investors exchanged about 213.13 million units of shares worth over ₦2.36 billion.

Local Bourse Starts The Week In Red
Local Bourse Starts The Week In Red

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 bullish sentiment across the bond yield curve as all the 4 bond yields under coverage closed lower. The yields on the FGN-APR-2023, FGN-APR-2024, FGN-JAN-2026 and FGN-JUL-2030 bond papers compressed by 2bps, 2bps, 4bps and 5bps respectively.

Treasury bill yields for the 91 and 182-day papers closed flat at 2.46% and 3.35% respectively while the 364-day compressed by 1bp to close at 6.55%.

 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

  • Local Bourse Starts the Week in Red, NGX ASI Sheds 9bps
  • Bullish Sentiment across the Bond Yield Curve
  • Positive Sentiment in Global Stocks
  • Negative Performance in the Commodities Market
  • Mixed Performance in African Stocks