…Year-to-date the Naira has depreciated by 39.74% to the US dollar in the official market, about 9% shy of its total depreciation in 2023.
TUE JULY 02 2024-theGBJournal| The Nigerian equities market was negative for most of the day however late buying interest in ZENITHBANK (+2.6%), GTCO (+1.9%) and ACCESSCORP (+2.6%) ensured the market closed higher. Thus, the All-Share index advanced by 0.1% to 100,067.77 points, with the MTD and YTD returns settling at 0.0% and +33.8%, respectively.
The total trading volume increased by 33.1% to 365.64 million units, valued at NGN4.12 billion, and exchanged in 8,665 deals. UNIVINSURE was the most traded stock by volume at 61.53 million units, while UCAP was the most traded by value at NGN711.31 million.
Analysing by sectors, the Insurance (+2.0%) and Banking (+0.8%) indices recorded gains, while the Consumer Goods (-0.3%) index declined. Meanwhile, the Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas indices closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.9x), as 24 tickers lost relative to 22 gainers. RTBRISCOE (-9.9%) and CUTIX (-6.8%) topped the losers’ list, while CORNERST (+10.0%) and JAIZBANK (+10.0%) recorded the most significant gains of the day.
Meanwhile, The naira depreciated by 3bps to N1,509.45/USD in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM).
Year-to-date the Naira has depreciated by 39.74% to the US dollar in the official market, about 9% shy of its total depreciation in 2023.
The gap between the official and street markets widened to 1.31%. The CBN’s published gross foreign exchange reserves added 1.31% or US$442.47mn on the week to close at US$34.14 billion
We note, however, that the pace of depreciation has slowed as the CBN continues to enact policies affecting players in the market, especially the Bureaux de Change (BDC). The approval of the World Bank loan of US$2.25 billionn also provided some respite.
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