The local bourse sustained the positive momentum from the prior year in the first half of 2022 with a return of 21.3% – outperforming our bull case projection of 13.7%. In part, this was driven by impressive FY:2021 corporate earnings, dividend payments, market stimulating corporate actions, and robust system liquidity. Although yield reversal in the fixed income market and the CBN hawkish switch (150bps increase in MPR to 13.0%) dented the broad-base market rally from 2021, the resilience of major bellwethers - MTNN (+16.8%), AIRTELAF (+81.4%), DANGCEM (+7.0%), and SEPLAT (+100.0%) - with over 50.0% share of market capitalisation supported the NGX return over the period. In addition, we observed a further decline in foreign investors' participation on the bourse to 13.4% in May 2022 (FY-2021: 22.9%), a development we attribute to the persistent FX woes.