TheCable

Stock Market

Weekly activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) ended on Friday on a negative note, as the All-Share Index dipped 0.10 per cent due to price depreciation. The index lost 40.96 basis points to close at 41,529.11 against 41,570.07 achieved on Thursday.

Market capitalisation, which opened at N13.726 trillion, lost N14 billion or 0.10 per cent, to close at N13.712 trillion.

Cadbury led the gainers’ table by N2.45 to close at N79.45 per share.

Conoil grew by N1.18 to close at N52, while Oando Oil improved by 98k to close at N19.98 per share.

On the losers’ table, Lafarge Wapco led the pack with a loss of N5.71 to close at N118 per share.

Nigerian Breweries came second with a loss of N4.80 to close at N178.40, while Ashaka Cement dropped N1.59 to close at N27.36 per share.

Reports also show that the volume of transactions dropped by 57.49 per cent as 190.165 million shares worth N2.66 billion were traded in 4,741 deals. This was against the 447.406 million shares valued at N6.320 billion traded in 5,943 deals on Thursday.

Transcorp was the toast of investors, accounting for 36.35 million shares worth N156.09 million.

UBA followed with a total of 17.68 million shares valued at N133.48 million, while GTBank sold 17.12 million shares worth N513.36 million.

Although, the ASI ended the week with a loss, Nigerian stocks rose 7.75 percent in May as the re-balancing in the MSCI index attracted funds to the bourse, achieving a four month high.

The increase is helping to channel about $200 million in fresh foreign flows on top of further domestic flows into the market.

On sector basis, the oil and gas sector advanced 21.6 per cent, the banking sector added 13.1 per cent, the consumer goods sector 8.2 per cent, while the industrial and the insurance sectors gained 4.8 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively.

Bonds

Also on Friday, the Debt Management Office (DMO) revealed its plans to raise N70 billion ($428 million) in 3 and 10-year bonds in an auction on June 11.

In a public notice, the DMO said it will issue N35 billion each in the papers, maturing in August 2016 and March 2024, respectively.

Inter-bank rates

The inter-bank lending rates eased this week to an average of 10.5 per cent from 10.75 per cent last week. This is attributed to the increased liquidity from retired treasury bills and refunds on excess payments of cash reserve requirements.

Reports show that about $1.22 billion (N200 billion) in matured treasury bills was retired on Thursday, while about $460.27 million (N75 billion) debited in excess of CRR was refunded to some banks, boosting liquidity levels in the banking system.

The cash balance of lenders at the CBN rose to N535 billion on Friday compared with N348 billion last week Friday.

The open buy-back went 1.75 percentage points below the central bank’s benchmark rate of 12 per cent to close at 10.25 per cent on Friday, compared with 10.50 per cent last week.

Overnight, placement dropped to 10.50 per cent from 10.75 per cent last week, while call money fell to 10.75 per cent from 11 per cent.