At the end of yesterday’s trading session, the Nigerian equities market closed negative as the benchmark index declined by 0.21% to close at 42,270.23points.
This was mainly due to sell pressures in bellwether stocks such as DANGCEM (-1.18%) and WAPCO (-1.64%). Consequently, the YTD return decreased to 4.97% as market capitalisation declined by ₦45.47 billion to close at ₦22.06 trillion.
The sectoral performance marginally strenghtened as three of the five indices under coverage improved. The Oil & Gas, the biggest gainer, increased by 0.54% on TOTAL (+2.35%). The Banking and Consumer Goods indices followed suit, rising by 0.45% and 0.11% on UBA (+1.29%) and DANGSUGAR (+1.52%) respectively. On the flip side, the Insurance and Industrial indices, the losers declined by 0.83% and 0.73% on SOVRENINS (-4.17%) and WAPCO (-1.64%) respectively.
Investor sentiment weakened as market breadth declined to 0.75x from 1.46x. This was illustrated by the advance of 15 stocks, led by ROYALEX (+5.00%) and CHAMS (+4.76%) and the decline of 20 stocks, led by LIVESTOCK (-10.00%) and UPDC (-8.33%). Activity level improved as the total volume and value increased by 10.28% and 35.73% respectively as investors exchanged about 249.43million units of shares worth over ₦3.57billion
We expect positive sentiment 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 mixed sentiment across the bond yield curve as 2 of the 4 bond yields under coverage closed lower while the yields on the FGN-JAN-2026 and FGN-JUL-2030 bond paper closed flat at 11.28% and 12.59% respectively. The yields on the FGN-APR-2023 and FGN-APR-2024 bond papers compressed by 27bps and 13bps respectively.
Treasury bill yields for the 91, 182 and 364-day papers closed flat at 3.00%, 3.74% and 5.63% respectively.
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
- Negative Performance Returns in the Local Bourse, NGX ASI Loses 21bps
- Mixed Sentiment across the Bond Yield Curve
- Positive Sentiment in Global Stocks
- Positive Performance in the Commodities Market
- Negative Performance in African Stocks
