• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Equities shed N39bn as CBN retains benchmark rates

Godwin Emefiele

The Nigerian capital market continued its downward trend last Friday as listed stocks shed N39.09 billion in a week that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) retained the benchmark rates.

“The Committee was also of the opinion that retaining the current position of policy offers pathways to appraising the effects of the suit of heterodox monetary policy to encourage credit delivery to the real sector, especially in the light of the subsisting implementation of the Loan to Deposit Ratio policy. In view of the foregoing, the Committee decided by a unanimous vote to retain the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 13.5 per cent and to hold all other policy parameters constant’, Godwin Emefiele, CBN Governor announced last week.

Therefore, the MPC retained the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) at 13.5 percent; maintained the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +200/-500bps; retained the Cash Reserves Ratio (CRR) at 22.5percent while it kept the liquidity ratio at 30.0percent.

Market players were not impressed by this decision as the All Share Index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed at 27,698.69 points last Friday. This amounted to a week to date decline of -0.29 percent, month to date gain of 0.63 percent; quarter to date decline of -7.57 percent and a year to date decline of -11.87 percent.

The market capitalisation ended the week at N13.48 trillion, amounting to a week to date loss of N39.09 billion and a year to date gain of N1.76 trillion, courtesy of the listings from MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria.

The NSE Oil and Gas Index and NSE Consumer Goods Index are the worst hit year to date, as both have so far declined by -29.30 percent and -28.75 percent respectively.

With 223.4 percent YTD gain, Dangote Flour led the stocks with the highest price appreciation year to date. It closed at N22 per share last week Friday. Cornerstone Insurance closed N0.39 per share having appreciated by 95 percent year to date.

MTN Nigeria closed at N140 per share which translated to a YTD gain of 55.6 percent. BOC Gas and Caverton appreciated by 45.4 percent and 31.8 percent to close at N6.12 and N2.53 per share respectively.

On the flip side are University Press, Guinness Nigeria, GSK, Total Nigeria and International Breweries. Their share prices depreciated by at least 47.2 percent and at most 60.7 percent.

 

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