At the end of yesreday’s trading session, the Nigerian equities market closed negative with the benchmark index declining by 0.38% to close at 42,008.60 points. This was mainly due to selloffs in bellwether stocks such as WAPCO (-9.94%) and VITAFOAM (-8.68%). Consequently, the YTD return worsened to 4.32% as market capitalisation reduced by ₦83.128 billion to close at ₦21.92 trillion.
The sectoral performance totally weakened as all the five indices under coverage declined. The Insurance index, the biggest loser, weakened by 1.77% on CUSTODIAN (-2.60%). The Banking, Industrial, Consumer Goods and Oil & Gas indices, followed suit, falling by 1.37%, 0.58%, 0.34% and 0.11% on UBA (-5.06%), WAPCO (-9.94%), VITAFOAM (-8.68%) and ETERNA (-4.13%) respectively.
Investor sentiment weakened at the end of today’s trading session, as market breadth decreased to 0.42x from 0.72x. This was illustrated by the advance of 10 stocks, led by ROYALEX (+9.43%) and UPDC (+9.09%) and the decline of 24 stocks, led by WAPCO (-9.94%) and LINKASSURE (-8.93%). Activity level strengthened as the total volume and value improved by 133.31% and 77.04% respectively as investors exchanged about 422.18 million units of shares worth over ₦4.47 billion.
We expect bullish momentum to return in the next trading session as the equities market still presents decent opportunities for investors chasing positive real return on investments.
READ ALSO: Positive Performance Persists In The Local Bourse, NGX ASI Up 38bps
Fixed Income
There was relatively bullish sentiment across the bond yield curve as 2 of the 4 bond yields under coverage closed lower, the FGN-JUL-2030 bond paper increased by 26bps while the FGN-JAN-2026 closed flat at 11.64%. Both yields on FGN-APR-2023 and FGN-APR-2024 bond papers compressed by 1bp respectively.
Treasury bill yields for the 91 and 182-day papers closed flat at 2.46% and 3.35% while the 364-day paper increased by 28bps to close at 5.64%.
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 Streak, NGX ASI Dips 38bps
- Bullish Sentiment across the Bond Yield Curve
- Positive Sentiment in Global Stocks
- Brent Crude Reports at $71.34/barrel
- Mixed Performance in African Stocks
