Price appreciation in banking stocks pushed the local equities market into a marginal bullish close

• Investors gain N1.8 billion as analysts anticipate a bullish close this week

Charles Abuede

With the marginal reign of the bulls in the domestic equities market this week, the local bourse closed flat on Thursday and was largely driven by price appreciation in the banking stocks such as UBA (+2.1%), First Bank Holding (+1.4%), and Access Bank (+0.7%). The market performance was buoyed positively as the All-Share index rose 0.01 per cent to close at 39,131.80 points on the back of earnings season. As a result, the market year to date loss remained at -2.8 per cent while market capitalisation increased to N20.47 trillion and the sum of N1.8 billion was gathered in profit by market investors.

Varyingly, the level of trading activity stayed mixed as total volume traded fell 4.6 per cent to 228.1 million units while the total value exchanged rose 58.5 per cent to N2.6 billion. The most traded stocks by volume were GTBank (37.3m units), Zenith Bank (28.8m units), and First Bank Holding (22.3m units) while GTBank (N1.2bn), Zenith Bank (N635.3m), and First Bank Holding (N164.9m) led by value.

On Thursday, it was a mixed market performance across the sectoral fronts as 3 indicators lost, 1 gained while the industrial goods and ICT indices closed flat. The insurance index led losers, down 0.4 per cent due to price depreciation in Aiico Insurance (-2.4%) and Sunu Assurance (-9.1%). Similarly, the banking and consumer goods fell 4 basis points and 1 basis point respectively due to sell-offs in Zenith Bank (-1.4%), Fidelity Bank (-1.8%), Honeywell Flour (-8.5%), and Cadbury Plc (-3.7%). Conversely, the oil & gas index advanced 0.2 per cent following a price uptick in Oando Plc (+4.0%).

Positivity reign across the market breadth as investor sentiment strengthened to 1.1x from the 1.0x recorded in the previous session as 17 stocks advanced against 15 losers. Riding the top gainers’ chart include Cutix Plc (+7.0%), PZ Cussons (+6.9%) and Linkage Assurance (+5.0%) while Eko Corporation (-10.0%), Sunu Assurance (-9.1%) and Honeywell Flour (-8.5%) were the top decliners.

NSE 30

Furthermore, the NSE 30 Index marginally decreased by 0.03 per cent to close at 1,558.02 points as against 1,558.49 points as on the previous day. Market turnover closed with a traded volume of 147.78 million units. UBA and First Bank Holding were the key gainers, while Fidelity and Zenith Banks were the key losers.

FX Market

In the currency market, the naira traded unchanged at N410 per dollar at the investors and exporters’ segment of the market while it also traded flat at the official CBN window at N379 to the greenback. Meanwhile, most participants maintained bids between N394 and N422 per dollar.

T-Bills Market

In the treasury bills market, silence in trade was witnessed however the expected level of liquidity, as the NT-Bills secondary market closed on a flat note, with the average yield across the curve remaining unchanged at 4.65 per cent. Similarly, the average yields across short-term, medium-term, and long-term maturities closed at 2.85 per cent, 3.35 per cent, and 6.33 per cent, respectively.

In the OMO bills segment of the money market, the average yield across the curve increased by 27 basis points to close at 7.73 per cent as against the last close of 7.46 per cent. Selling pressure was seen across long-term maturities with the average yield expanding by 49  basis points, while the average yield on medium-term maturities declined by 4  basis points. However, the average yield on short-term maturities closed flat at 4.32 per cent. Yields on 12 bills advanced with the 22-Feb-22 maturity bill recording the highest yield increase of 114 basis points, while yields on 15 bills remained unchanged.

Bond Market

Elsewhere, the FGN bonds secondary market closed on a mildly negative note today, as the average bond yield across the curve cleared higher by 4 basis points to close at 8.25 per cent from 8.21 per cent on the previous day. Average yields across medium tenor and long tenor of the curve expanded by 26 basis points and 7 basis points, respectively. However, the average yields across the short tenor of the curve remained unchanged. The 18-JUL-2034 maturity bond was the best performer with a decrease in the yield of 5 basis points, while the 26-APR-2029 maturity bond was the worst performer with an increase in the yield of 55 basis points.