Access Bank Holdings said it has completed injection of $300 million capital investment into its flagship subsidiary, Access Bank Plc. The investment which has been approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria, takes the form of a Tier 1 capital qualifying mandatory convertible instrument. This investment is expected to improve the Bank’s shareholders funds and total capital ratios. Meanwhile, the bearish sentiment drove the NGX-ASI lower by 0.2% to 54,082.96 points, driven by price decline in STANBIC, GTCO, and ZENITH. Consequently, the YTD return weakened to 5.5% while market capitalisation shed ₦55.2 billion to ₦29.5 trillion. Activity level improved as volume and value traded rose 1.4% and 28.8% to 296.7 million units and ₦3.1 billion respectively.
Performance across sectors within our coverage was positive as 3 indices gained, 1 lost while the Industrial Goods and AFR-ICT indices closed flat. Leading the charge, the Insurance index advanced 0.9% due to price uptick in MANSARD (+5.3%) and WAPIC (+8.1%). Similarly, the Oil & Gas and Consumer Goods indices appreciated 0.3% and 0.1% respectively due to buying interest in CONOIL (+5.3%), DANGSUGAR (+2.9%), and PZ (+1.9%). Conversely, the Banking index declined 1.3% due to sell pressure on ZENITH (-2.5%), ETI (-2.8%), and UBA (-0.6%)
Investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth, pared to -0.09x from -0.08x in the prior session as 14 stocks advanced, 21 declined while 74 closed flat. Tomorrow, it is expected that the bearish sentiment will linger in the absence of positive catalysts.
