BY BAMIDELE FAMOOFO
The Nigerian equities market reversed its one-week consecutive descent and traded positively, driven by investors’ interest in NESTLE (+2.9%).
Thus, the All-Share Index advanced by 0.3 percent to 47,287.09 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date return moderated to -0.2 percent, while the Year-to-Date return increased to +10.4 percent.
The total volume of trades declined by 55.5 percent to 336.31 million units, valued at N5.87 billion, and exchanged in 5,248 deals.
FBNH was the most traded stock by volume at 108.61 million units, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at N1.43 billion.
Analyzing by sectors, performance was broadly positive as the Insurance (+3.5%), Consumer Goods (+2.1%), and Oil & Gas (+3.9%) indices gained, while the Banking and Industrial Goods indices closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (2.4x) as 29 tickers gained relative to 12 losers PRESCO (+10.0%) and PHARMDEKO (+9.9%) recorded the highest gains of the day, while ELLAHLAKES (-9.9%) and MAYBAKER (-9.9%) topped the losers’ list.
In the currency market, the naira depreciated by 0.1 percent to N416.50/USD at the I&E window as the overnight lending rate declined by 42bps to 4.8 percent in the absence of any significant funding pressure on the system.
Trading activities in the NTB secondary market were quiet, as the average yield remained at 3.4 percent. Elsewhere, the average yield expanded by 61bps to 3.9 percent in the OMO segment.
The Treasury bond secondary market was mixed, albeit with a bearish tilt as the average yield inched higher by 1bp to 10.4%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield pared at the short (-1bp) end following buying interest on the APR-2023 (-1bp) bond but expanded at the long (+2bp) end due to sell-offs of the MAR-2036 (+14bps) bond. Conversely, the average yield remained flat at the mid segment.
