At the close of Wednesday’s trading session, the Nigerian Equities market exhibited a notable downturn, registering a total market loss of N2.56 billion, underscoring prevailing bearish sentiments.
The benchmark index experienced a marginal decline, settling at 98,223.97 points, while the market capitalization of listed equities closed at N55.55 trillion.
This trading day saw a prevalence of bearish activity, with the Exchange witnessing more decliners (19) than gainers (14).
Among the notable decliners were PZ, INTBREW, MCNICHOLS, STERLINGNG, and LINKASSURE, with each experiencing significant downward share repricing, recording declines of -10.00 percent, -9.89 percent, -9.73 percent, -9.59 percent, and -9.41 percent, respectively.
Despite subdued trading activity levels, marked by a 15.58 percent decrease in total deals and a 25.04 percent plunge in trading volume, totaling 8,121 trades and 319.08 million units, respectively, there was a notable uptick in traded value, which increased by 9.94 percent to N9.18 billion.
Sectoral performance mirrored the overall bearish sentiment, with the Banking, Insurance, Consumer, and Industrial Goods indices all experiencing losses of 1.03 percent, 0.15 percent, 0.27 percent, and 0.22 percent, respectively.
Amidst the prevailing market conditions, certain stocks exhibited resilience, with OKOMUOIL, TANTALIZER, CUTIX, TIP, and WAPIC emerging as the top gainers for the day, showcasing share price appreciations of 9.98 percent, 8.33 percent, 5.26 percent, 4.76 percent, and 4.41 percent, respectively.
In terms of trading volume, UBA led the pack with 79.98 million units transacted in 689 trades, while MTNN dominated in traded value, recording transactions worth N2.56 billion.
In the money market, NIBOR rates saw an upward trend across various maturities, even as the overnight NIBOR increased by 0.40 percent to reach 29.58 percent. This uptrend was attributed to the existence of liquidity crunch in the market. Consequently, key money market rates such as the open repo rate (OPR) and overnight lending rate (OVN), moved northward to 28.96 percent (from 28.53%) and 29.71 percent (from 29.47%), respectively.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Interbank Treasury Bills True Yield (NITTY) showed mixed movements across tenors. However, the average secondary market yield on Nigerian Treasury Bills cleared lower by a base point, to close at 21.66 percent.
In the secondary market for FGN Bonds, there was a low level of activity, as yields were flat for most maturities across the curve. However, there was buy interest for the Apr-29 FGN paper, which drove the average yields lower by 0.01 percent. In the sovereign Eurobonds market, negative sentiment prevailed, causing a 6-basis point increase in the average yield to 9.68 percent.
In the foreign exchange market, the Naira depreciated against the dollar, by 0.32 percent to close at ₦1,421.06 per dollar in the official market. In the parallel market, the Naira stayed steady on Wednesday, closing at ₦1,415 against the US dollar.
