By Mike Abbah
Sentiments remained bullish in the equities market on Tuesday, August 27, as bargain hunting activities in FBNH (+10.0%) and OANDO (+10.0%) spurred a 0.5% increase in the benchmark index.
As a result, the All-Share Index closed at 96,510.13 points, as against 96,037.28 on Monday, with the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns settling at -1.3% and +29.1%, respectively.
Market capitalization closed at N55.43 trillion against N55.16 trillion on the previous day, showing investors’ gain of N272 billion or a 5% increase.
The total volume of trades increased by 17.5% to 443.16 million units, valued at NGN5.64 billion, and exchanged in 8,493 deals. Veritas was the most traded stock by volume at 83.08 million units, while Access Corporation was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.06 billion.
Sectoral performance was broadly positive, as the Oil & Gas (+4.1%), Banking (+1.5%), Insurance (+1.3%), and Consumer Goods (+0.5%) indices inched higher, while the Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (3.4x), as 47 tickers gained relative 14 losers. John Holt (+10.0%) and Neimeth (+10.0%) recorded the most significant gains of the day, while UPL (-9.6%) and Cutix (-6.3%) topped the losers’ list.
At the currency market, the naira appreciated by 0.2% to N1,594.27/$ from N1,596.60 it traded on Monday in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM). Market turnover rose to $156.94 million from $102.93 million traded on Monday.
The overnight lending rate expanded by 85bps to 26.4%, following net debits for the OMO auction (N853.46 billion) conducted on Monday.
The Nigerian treasury bills secondary market traded with bullish sentiments, as the average yield contracted by 32bps to 21.4%.
Across the curve, the average yield declined at the short (-98bps) and mid (-24bps) segments, driven by buying interest in the 17DTM (-117bps) and 178DTM (-238bps) bills, respectively. Meanwhile, the average yield expanded at the long (+5bps) end due to a sell-off of the 192DTM (+55bps) bill. Meanwhile, the average yield expanded by 2bps to 24.5% in the OMO segment.
In the same vein, the Treasury bond secondary market closed on a bullish note, as the average yield declined by 20bps to 19.1%.
Analysts predict a bullish trend in both markets as trading in the eighth month of the year comes to an end on Friday.
