Inter-bank rates moderates further despite deposit pressure

Interbank rates moderated further on Tuesday to 15.5 percent,  signifying  12bps decline on the average.

This happened despite the banks’ desperation for deposits via retail and corporate means in order to meet both the CRR requirement and create interest generating risk assets.

Also, treasury bill rates went up across tenors except 1-month which declined 13bps to close at 10.65%. The average increase of 22bps reflects investors’ exit preference while the average rate settled at 12.7%.

With CRR and lther CBN measures having effects, the banks’ apetite for dollar has gone down considerably. The Naira for first gain in 5 days with NGN0.22. Naira opened at NGN160.60 and traded to the high and low of NGN160.70 and NGN160.20 respectively during the day before closing at NGN161.34/USD as demand for dollar remained low.

Meanwhile, negative sentiments persisted at the Nigerian Stock Exchange for the the second day this week and for the 9th day in the last 10 trading days.

Shares dropped  66bps as market  breadth settled at 0.83x Only 20 stocks gained while  24 declined.

The small cap stocks again featured on the top gainers’ list with MULTITREX, VONO, TRANSEXPR, JOHNHOLT and JOSBREW gaining above 9% each while CHAMPION, INTERNEGINS, NPFMCRFBK and COURTVILLE also lost above 9% a piece. The banking and consumer goods stocks featured the most on the top 10 trades by volume and value.

All sectors remained down with the exception of the insurance sector that gained 0.16% as reflected by the NSE-INS10 index. The banking and oil & gas sectors led other sector losers with their respective 1.25% and 1.19% loss.