By Bamidele Famoofo
WorldStage– The Nigerian equities market opened the week on a soft note on Monday, with the NGX All-Share Index slipping 0.84 percent to close at 241,749.11 points, pulling the year-to-date return down to +55.35 percent and stripping ₦1.32 trillion from market capitalization, which closed at ₦155.13 trillion.
Investor sentiment was negative at a market breadth of 0.4x, as 44 decliners led by PZ, BUACEMENT, REDSTAREX, RTBRISCOE, and CILEASING outpaced 19 advancers, with NIDF, INTBREW, NAHCO, UACN, and DAARCOMM recording the most notable gains. Sectoral performance was mostly negative, as Industrial (- 3.28%), Insurance (-2.18%), Banking (-1.44%), and Oil & Gas (-0.09%) all weighed on the index, while Consumer Goods (+0.59%) bucked the trend and the Commodity sector ended flat.
Trading activity was broadly positive, however, as volume, turnover, and deal count rose 18.65%, 14.81%, and 33.39% to 523.54 million shares, ₦22.28 billion, and 59,945 transactions respectively. Looking ahead, the market is expected to rebound, underpinned by ongoing strategic investor repositioning and portfolio rebalancing, though profit-taking in recently appreciated counters may temper the pace of any recovery.
The interbank market advanced across all tenors in the money market on Monday despite improved system liquidity, as the overnight NIBOR rose 4bps to 22.23 percent. Longer-dated maturities followed this upward trend, with the 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month rates increasing by 33bps, 77bps, and 90bps respectively, while funding costs diverged as the Overnight rate dropped 14bps to 22.09 percent and the Open Repo rate held steady at 22.00 percent.
Meanwhile, Treasury Bills secondary market trading closed on a positive note for investors as yields dropped across the board. Yields on the 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month papers fell by 10bps, 15bps, 4bps, and 20bps respectively. Robust trading volumes and firm investor appetite pulled the average NT-Bills yield down by 4bps to 18.47 percent.
