BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
The local bourse edged a negative performance in today’s session, on sell-offs of ZENITHBNK (-0.8%) and ACCESS (-0.6%) triggered the market performance amid investors’ interest in MTNN (+0.1%).
Precisely, the All-Share Index settled 1bp lower to close at 42,388.57 points. Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date return was unchanged at -2.0% and +5.3%, respectively.
The total volume traded surged by 94.1% to 275.93 million units, valued at N3.94 billion, and exchanged in 3,489 deals.
UACN was the most traded stock by volume at 75.88 million units, while FBNH was the most traded stock by value at N836.41 million, respectively.
Analysing by sectors, the Insurance (+1.2%) and Consumer Goods (+0.1%) indices recorded gains, while the Oil & Gas (-0.5%) and Banking (-0.4%) indices declined. The Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.4x) as 20 tickers gained relative to 14 losers. MEYER (+9.5%) and CHIPLC (+9.3%) recorded the highest gains of the day, while ETERNA (-9.9%) and MRS (-9.9%) topped the losers’ list.
The naira was depreciated by 0.1% to NGN415.10/USD at the I&E window.
The overnight lending rate contracted by 250bps to 10.0%, following inflows from OMO maturities (NGN45.00 billion).
Trading in the Treasury bills secondary market continued with mixed sentiments, as the average yield was unchanged at 4.5%. Similarly, the average yield at the OMO segment was flat at 5.5%.
The Treasury bond secondary market was mixed with bearish bias, as the average yield expanded by 2bps to 11.4%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield closed higher at the short (+5bps) end following sell pressures on the JAN-2022 (+26bps) bond but was unchanged at the mid and long segments.
