At the end of yesterday’s trading session, the Nigerian equities market closed in red as the benchmark index declined by 0.34% to close at 42,244.22 points. This was mainly due to sell pressures in bellwether stocks such as MTNN (-1.34%) and ZENITHBANK (-1.01%). Consequently, the YTD return decreased to 4.90% as market capitalisation declined by ₦75.34 billion to close at ₦22.05 trillion.
The sectoral performance marginally weakened as three of the five indices under coverage declined. The Banking index, the biggest loser, declined by 1.00% on ZENITHBANK (-1.01%). The Oil & Gas and Industrial indices followed suit, declining by 0.75% and 0.21% on OANDO (-3.96%) and WAPCO (-3.75%) respectively. On the flip side, the Consumer Goods and Insurance indices followed suit, rising by 0.58% and 0.55% on NESTLE (+1.43%) and CHIPLC (+5.08%).
Investor sentiment closed positive but lower than the previous trading session as market breadth decreased to 1.14x from 1.40x. This was illustrated by the advance of 16 stocks, led by CUTIX (+10.00%) and MAYBAKER (+10.00%) and the decline of 14 stocks, led by ROYALEX (-6.67%) and LASACO (-6.36%). Activity level weakened as the total volume and value decreased by 18.81% and 32.47% respectively as investors exchanged about 224.03million units of shares worth over ₦2.66billion.
We expect positive sentiment to return 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 quiet activity across the bond yield curve as 3 of the 4 bond yields under coverage closed flat while the yield on the FGN-APR-2023 compressed by 1bp. The yields on FGN-APR-2024, FGN-JAN-2026 and FGN-JUL-2030 closed flat at 9.31%, 11.28% and 12.60% respectively.
Treasury bill yields for the 91 and 364 day-papers compressed by 1bp and 39bps respectively while the 182-day paper closed flat at 3.28%.
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.
THE MARKET SNAPSHOT
- Negative Performance Persists in the Local Bourse, NGX ASI Sheds 34bps
- Quiet Activity across the Bond Yield Curve
- Positive Sentiment in Global Stocks
- Positive Performance in the Commodities Market
- Positive Performance in African Stocks
