By Bamidele Famoofo
WorldStage– Investors in the Nigerian equities market grabbed N515billion from transactions on Monday, with the NGX All-Share Index advancing 0.38 percent to settle at 243,396.25 points. The year-to-date return was lifted to +56.41 percent while market capitalization closed at ₦156.11 trillion.
Market breadth was positive at 1.1x, as 32 gainers led by INTENEGINS, TIP, ABCTRANS, ABBEYBDS, and UPDCREIT outpaced 29 losers, with FIDSON, ACADEMY, RTBRISCOE, SUNUASSUR, and LEARNAFRICA recording the most notable losses. Sectoral performance was largely positive, as Oil & Gas (+0.87%), Insurance (+0.62%), Banking (+0.59%), Commodity (+0.37%), and Consumer Goods (+0.10%) all closed in positive territory, while the Industrial sector (-0.003%) exerted a marginal drag on the index.
Trading activity strengthened considerably across the board, with volume, turnover, and deal count climbing 22.63 percent, 81.26 percent, and 39.93 percent to 746.18 million shares, ₦58.06 billion, and 75,320 transactions respectively.
Heading into the next session, the market is expected to sustain its bullish bias as investors begin to recalibrate and reposition their portfolios.
In the money market, Nigerian Interbank Offered Rates surged across the board on Monday, with the overnight rate climbing 6bps to 22.13 percent, reflecting tightening system liquidity. The 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month tenors followed suit, advancing 69bps, 135bps, and 187bps respectively. Funding costs were divergent, however, as the Overnight rate rose 7bps to 22.17 percent while the Open Repo rate remained unchanged at 22.00 percent.
In the Treasury Bills secondary market, yields largely trended downward, with the 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12- month bills declining 23bps, 19bps, 10bps, and 12bps respectively. Despite this, the average NT-Bills yield edged up 5bps to close at 17.59 percent, pointing to softening investor demand and a broadly negative tone across the fixed-income space.
The FGN Bonds market turned sharply bearish on Monday, with average yields surging 25bps to 16.59 percent, pointing to significantly dampened domestic investor confidence and a notable weakening in appetite for naira-denominated sovereign debt.
The Eurobond market mirrored this negative sentiment, as average yields climbed 7bps to 6.88 percent, reflecting softening global investor interest and a broadly unfavorable outlook toward Nigeria’s dollar-denominated sovereign obligations.
The naira weakened across both market segments in the foreign exchange market on Monday, depreciating 0.05 percent to ₦1,362.84/$ at the NAFEM window
and dropping 0.36 percent to ₦1,373/$ in the parallel market, reflecting reduced buying interest in the local currency across both the official and informal foreign exchange segments.
