OVERVIEW
AIICO Balanced Fund is an open-ended mutual fund, investing in Fixed income instruments, Money market instruments and both Quoted and Unquoted equities.
INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE
The investment objective of the Fund is to create medium to long term capital growth as well as yearly income streams from declared dividends for unit holders. The fund also provides investors with the opportunity diversify their investments into products that would hitherto have been more difficult to invest in.
FUND PERFORMANCE
The AIICO balanced fund ended August with a YTD return of +7.73%, an improvement from 5.72% recorded in July 2022.
For August, the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NGX ASI) declined by 1.06% M-o-M, closing at 49,836.51 points, as selloffs on bellwethers like ACCESSCORP, DANGCEM and AIRTEL dragged the index southwards.
The Treasury Bills market traded bearish due to weak system liquidity, with market offers skewed towards the short and mid dated papers. Across the monthly NTB auctions, stop rates for the 91, 182 and 364-day papers increased by c.120bps, c.90bps and c.150bps to close at 4.00%, 5.00% and 8.50% respectively, M-o-M.
Bearish sentiment dominated the local bonds market as well, due to reduced coupon inflows and investors demanding more premium for holding Nigerian debt securities amid recent interest rate hike and worsening fundamentals. In addition, the Debt Management Office (DMO) raised the stop rates by an average of c.75bps to 12.50%, 13.50% and 14.00% across the 2025, 2032 and 2042 papers respectively, at the monthly bond auction.
