Stock Market Dips Further By N545.46bn

The equities market of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Tuesday extended losses from the previous session, as market capitalization depreciated further by N545 billion to close at N24.71trillion.

Also, the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) was down by 2.16 per cent to close at 45,366.32 points the lowest since 18 January, while the year-to-date (YTD) return fell to 6.20 per cent.

Analysis of yesterday’s trading activities showed that the extended rout in the market was primarily driven by continued selloffs in telco heavyweight, AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%).

Hence, trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 16.03 per cent.

A total of 420.28m units of shares valued at N3.62billion were exchanged in 3,486 deals.

GTCO (+2.49%) led the volume chart with 57.41m units traded while AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) led the value chart in deals worth N1.35billion.

Market breadth closed positive at a 1.3-to-1 ratio, with advancing ones outnumbering declining ones. UCAP (+9.69%) led seventeen (17) others on the gainer’s table, while AIRTELAFRI (-10.00%) topped thirteen (13) others on the laggard’s log.

Meanwhile, in Treasury bills, primary market auction conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for maturing bills, spot rates on 364-day surged to 13 per cent. The new market dynamics seen were spurred by a 400 basis points increase in benchmark interest rate by the monetary authority between May and September 2022.

Rate hikes, according to some analysts, will have less impact on the rising inflation rate because of disruption in the global supply chain driven by both the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and the now worsen by Russia-Ukraine war.

In the Investors’ and Exporters’ foreign exchange (FX) window, the naira appreciated by 0.1 per cent to N441.25 per the United States dollar. For the local currency, appreciation is a big word as it appears as naira could only be recovering from its weak position.