Banking giants lift trading as all-share index gains 24bps
The Nigeria Stock Exchange on Monday regained some momentum with the All-Share-Index gaining 24bps, while YtD stood at 29.41%.
Though that was not enough to liberate the market breadth from the grip of the bears as it stood at 0.9x with 26 stocks gaining and 29 losing.
The appreciation of major indicators was driven by the marginal gains from banking giants as the stocks of FBNH, GUARANTY and ZENITHBANK moved northward.
It was however PAINTCOM that topped the gainers’ list with 10% while TRANSEXPR led the losers’ cart.
Volume traded rose by 34.78% while market turnover came in 7.23% lower. ARBICO which lost 9.82% today recorded the most trades by volume and value controlling 41% and 22% of volume and value of transactions respectively. ARBICO is in the construction sector of the market.
All NSE indices closed North with the financial services sector leading the gains with NSEBNK10 and NSEINS10 indices expanding by 98bps and 94bps respectively. MERIBNK index also gained 1.16% which we attribute to the respective 0.71% and 2.53% gains by ZENITHBANK and GUARANTY.
Despite today’s marginal gains, we expect the market equities to close weak as investors’ appetite remains low.
Meanwhile, rates were up in the across all maturities. The shorter tenored instruments today enjoyed higher rate increases than instruments with longer tenors. The call rate appreciated the most by 0.62% while the 3-month rate increased the least by 0.25%. On the whole, NIBOR rates on average gained 0.46% to settle at 12.87%.
The treasury bills market also recorded average 0.47% gain to peg at 12.65%. A total of N152.97b maturities in three months , three and one year instruments is expected to hit the market in the week while the same amount is expected to be issued in the same tenors.
The naira remained week against the dollar in the foreign exchange market. It closed Monday at 1.99 per cent below the previous price. It closed at NGN/$163.05 relative to the previous close of NGN/$159.80.