At the end of yesterday’s trading session, the Nigerian equities market closed positive as the benchmark index improved by 0.10% to close at 42,394.71 points. This was mainly due to buy pressures in bellwether stocks such as DANGCEM (+0.59%) and ZENITHBANK (+0.20%). Consequently, the YTD return increased to 5.27% as market capitalisation increased by ₦21.61 billion to close at ₦22.13 trillion.
The sectoral performance marginally strengthened as three of the five indices under coverage improved. The Industrial sector, the biggest gainer, increased by 0.31% on DANGCEM (+0.59%). The Banking and Consumer Goods indices followed suit, rising by 0.29% and 0.03% on ZENITHBANK (+0.20%) and CADBURY (+1.15%) respectively. On the flip side, the Insurance and Oil & Gas indices, the losers, declined by 0.48% and 0.41% on LASACO (-5.45%) and OANDO (-2.13%) respectively.
Investor sentiment weakened as market breadth declined to 0.52x from 1.11x. This was illustrated by the advance of 11 stocks, led by NEIMETH (+9.82%) and UPDC (+9.43%) and the decline of 21 stocks, led by CILEASING (-8.70%) and CHIPLC (-6.90%). Activity level weakened as the total volume and value decreased by 58.39% and 29.68% respectively as investors exchanged about 142.17million units of shares worth over ₦2.49billion.
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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 relatively bullish sentiment across the bond yield curve as 2 of the 4 bond yields under coverage closed lower, the yield on the FGN-JAN-2026 closed flat at 11.28% while the FGN-JUL-2030 bond paper yield closed higher by 1bp. The yields on the FGN-APR-2023 and FGN-APR-2024 bond papers compressed by 3bps and 2bps respectively.
Treasury bill yields for the 91 and 364-day papers closed flat at 3.28% and 5.63% respectively while the 182-day paper yield declined by 1bp to close at 3.73%.
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 Green, NGX ASI Gains 10bps
- Mixed Sentiment across the Bond Yield Curve
- Negative Sentiment in Global Stocks
- Negative Performance in the Commodities Market
- Mixed Performance in African Stocks
