In volume terms, the 16 .39 percent FGN January 2022 drove the over-the-counter Bond Market for the week ended April 5, 2012 with a record volume of 32.38 million units valued at N34.9 billion in 289 transactions.

The 9th FGN Bond 2022 series 1 was followed by the 7.00 percent FGN Bond October 2019 (6th FGN Bond 2019 Series 4) which recorded a traded volume of 27.10 million units at the value of N18.05 million in 125 deals.

In all, the market recorded a total of 129.62 million units worth N11.73 billion in 803 trades during the review week up from the 115.99 million units exchanged in 1,029 transactions at the value of N101.566 billion during the previous week.

Out of the 26 available FGN Bonds only eight were traded, the same number that was traded the preceding week according to market reports.

The stable but low key activities in the FGN Bonds, according to market analysis was attributed to the market expectation of the FGN Bonds second quarter issuance calendar by the Debt Management Office of Nigeria (DMO).

Market analysis say due to the maturity of Circa N98.00 billion worth of OMO bills and the injection of N106 billion from  the excess crude account there was increased liquidity in the  system which reduced the interbank rates during the review weeks.

Also the treasury bill market was active on the short and medium terms as more positions were taken by investors in response to the liquidity in the system.

The equities sector of the market recorded a transaction volume of 1.149 million units of shares valued at N7.796 billion in 15,027 deals as against a total of 1.442 billion units of shares at the cost of N11.5 billion exchanging hands in 18,849 deals in the previous week.

The financial services sector, according to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) weekly report accounted for 857.99 million units of shares valued at N4.94 billion recorded in 8,856 trades.

With a traded volume of 70,547 million units of shares valued at N35.54 million exchanged in 13 deals, the Natural resources sector followed the financial services sector.

The Banking subsector was the most active in the financial services sector in terms of volume having traded a total of 738.97 million units of shares worth N4.87 billion exchanged by investors in 8,450 trades.

Boosted by activities in the Shares Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, the Diversified Industries subsector of the conglomerates sector emerged second on the week’s activity chart with a subsector turnover of 66.26 million units of shares valued at N33.5 million recorded in 212 deals.

The NSE-All Share Index surged by 1.40 percent to close on Thursday at 20,941.93 basis points while the market capitalization of the 187 main board equities rose from 6.549 trillion to finish at N6.641 trillion.

The NSE-30 Index soared by 1.85 percent to close at 956.19 points. Meanwhile both the NSE-All Share Index and the NSE-30 Index nose-dived the previous week by 2.5 percent and 3.45 percent respectively.

According to the NSE-Weekly report two out of the four sectorial indices appreciated during the week under review compared to one during the preceding week.

Vivian-Peace Nwinaene