Nigeria’s rate hike further hurts stocks

Investors in Nigeria’s equities market are taking sell positions since Tuesday’s further rate hike by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank. The market has decreased by 0.25 percent since the hike of Monetary Policy Rate (MPR).

The MPC of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) further ramped up tightening measures to check inflation as it hiked policy rate by 150 basis points (bps) to 26.25percent.

MPC also retained cash reserve ratio (CRR) for deposit money bank at 45percent; retained asymmetric corridor at +100bps/-300bps; and retained liquidity ratio constant at 30percent.

At the Lagos Bourse on Thursday, the market traded further south by -0.15 percent as more stock investors took sell positions in anticipation of price decline after the MPC decisions.

Skyway Aviation Handling Company led the league of top losers after its share price lowered from preceding day’s highs of N22.95 to N20.70, losing N2.25 or 9.80 percent.

The market’s negative close on Thursday pushed lower the return year-to-date (YtD) to 31.03percent.

The stock market’s benchmark performance indicators – the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation also decreased further from preceding trading day’s highs of 98,128 points and N55.508trillion respectively to 97,978.02 points and N55.424 trillion.

UBA, GTCO, Zenith Bank, Transcorp and Julius Berger shares were actively traded on Thursday. In 7,852 deals, investors exchanged 316,453,262 shares worth N7.699billion.