Equities trading on the floor of The Nigerian Stock Exchange shifted marginally to the negative territory as NSEASI gave up 2Bpts and closed at 32,375.12 from 32,381.00. It was a mixed performance amongst the observed market indices as shown in the index movement table. Week to Date, market is in the green by 15Bpts while total point lost so far in September is now 710Bpts. See the index movement table for details.
Value loss by the market capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N2.144 billion, same as 2Bpts below the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 24 advancers and 13 lagers. NSEASI Year to Date loss is now 15.34% while the Market Capitalization Year to Date loss stood at N1.790 trillion same as 13.15% below the year’s opening value.
Major market fundamentals for the rest of the week includes the entrants of the new finance minister- Zainab Ahmed, and the upcoming, the 263rd Meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which will commence on Monday 24th September, 2018 and will be concluded on Tuesday 25th September, 2018. All hands are on deck to see the outcome of the meeting, given the recent released headline inflation figure, released by NBS where the trajectory of consistent decline since February 2017 was halted. Please note that we maintain that taking advantage of low prices of listed equities is an intelligent investment decision at the moment.
At the interbank rate today, the Naira remained unchanged at N306.30 against the USDollar. See below table for BDC rates by four major locations within the country. Meanwhile, the I&E FX Window started from N363.03 traded as high as N364.75 before rounding up at N362.97, having transacted a total of $491.37 million through the day. Please note that, margin between the close and open value is an equivalent of 9Bpts. We are of the opinion that the FX-Market will trade within same range tomorrow.
In the money market, the Overnight (O/N) rate closed at 5.75%, same as 4.50% below yesterday’s closing position. Meanwhile, Open Buy-Back (OBB) rate ended at 4.75%, that is, 4.75% below the previous day’s close. We are of the opinion that the money market will maintain this range on the next business day. Safe Trade.
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