Nigeria’s stock market sees first dip on rate hike

After a two-day rally on Nigeria’s equities market, it recorded its first negative close on Tuesday as the Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) moved to curtail inflation by hiking Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) to 14percent. The MPR increase by 100 basis points is its second straight raise this year.

Though, the MPC left the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) unchanged at 27.5 percent; Liquidity Ratio at 30 percent; and retained the asymmetric corridor of +100/-700 basis points around the MPR.

Investors lost about N6billion at the close of trading, which pushed the market’s record positive return year-to-date (YtD) lower to +22.46percent.

Read also: Nigeria’s stock market gains N328bn in bullish trading week

The market’s performance indicators – the All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalisation – decreased from preceding trading day’s highs of 52,319.94 points and N28.214trillion to 52,308.88 points and N28.208trillion.

Multiverse Mining and Exploration Plc led Tuesday’s top laggards on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) after its share price moved from N1.79 to N1.62, losing 17kobo or 9.50percent.

Academy Press Plc also decreased by N2 to N1.86, losing 14kobo or 7percent. Caverton also made the top decliners league after its share price dropped from a high of N1.37 to N1.28, down by 9kobo or 6.57percent, followed by UPDC which dipped from N1.24 to N1.19, losing 5kobo or 4.03percent.

UBA, Access Holdings, AIICO, FBN Holdings and GTCO were top-5 traded stocks as investors in 4,127 deals exchanged 205,641,440 shares valued at N2.786billion.