June 20, (THEWILL) – The naira continued in its debilitating state Tuesday as it slumped to N756.61/$ on the I&E window.
Although this was a marginal recovery from Monday’s all-time crash of N770.38/$1, it marks the historic convergence of the I&E window and the parallel market for the first time.
Analysts believe that the convergence suggests that the much-sought unification of the multiple exchange windows has happened.
This is happening six trading days since the Naira was floated on Wednesday June 14 on the order of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to the deposit money banks to allow the local currency find its true value in an unhindered, free fall.
Before then, the naira had traded in the region of N470/$1 at the I&E Window while the CBN maintained the “official” rate of N467/$1 on its website.
Parallel market rate hovered between N750-N800/$1 in the best of the first half of the year.
Meanwhile, the stock market closed on a positive note Tuesday, extending gains for the second consecutive session as investors garnered N51.8 billion.
Market capitalisation rose to N32.18 trillion Tuesday from N32.13 billion on Monday with the NGX All-Share Index (ASI) recording 59,110.02 basis points against 59,014.85 on Monday.
This represents a bencharm index gain of 0.16 percent.
.ains in industrial giant, DANGCEM (+0.14%) alongside banking names GTCO (+0.78%) and ACCESSCORP (+0.34%), were the main drivers of the market’s overall performance.
This outweighed losses in NB (-0.68%), ETI (+1.28%) and INTBREW (-1.89%). \
Consequently, the year-to-date (YTD) return rose to 15.33% while the market capitalization gained ₦51.82bn to close at ₦32.19tn.
Analysis of today’s market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 19.61%.
A total of 588.85m shares valued at ₦8.96bn were exchanged in 8,272 deals. UBA (+0.00%) led the volume chart with 78.51m units traded, while GTCO (+0.78%) led the value chart in deals worth ₦2.11 billion.
Market breadth closed positive at a 2.92-to-1 ratio with advancing issues outnumbering declining ones.
CHAMS (+10.00%) topped thirty-four (34) others on the leader’s log, while CORNERST (-9.82%) led eleven (11) others on the laggard’s table.
About the Author
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
