WED, AUG 19 2020-theG&BJournal– Equities stayed on the rise Wednesday as demand for Tier 1 bank stocks, and INTBREW (+7.1%) drove the index higher. The NSE ASI advanced by 0.1% to 25,171.32 points with the Month-to-Date gain increasing to +1.9% while the Year-to-Date loss moderated to -6.2%.
The total volume of trades declined by 33.6% to 180.01 million units, valued at NGN1.54 billion and exchanged in 3,108 deals. 13 stocks posted gains while 13 stocks declined.
GUARANTY-1.20%, INTBREW (+7.1%), STUDPRESS-10%, ZENITH-0.9% and UBA were the top five movers.
ZENITHBANK was both the most traded stock by volume and by value at 35.94 million units and NGN605.18 million, respectively while ACCESS- 29,078,795, TRANSCORP-16,488,807, UBA-12,489,776 and FBNH-10,532,256 were in the top trade trades.
Sectoral performance was broadly mixed with gains recorded across the Banking (+0.8%), Insurance (+0.4%) and Consumer Goods (+0.2%) indices, while the Industrial Goods (-0.04%) index declined. The Oil & Gas index traded flat.
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was flat (1.0x), as 13 tickers gained relative to 13 losers. STUDPRESS (+10.0%) and INTBREW (+7.1%) topped the gainers’ list while CAP (-10.0%) and ROYALEX (-9.7%) recorded the largest losses of the day.
Currency
The naira weakened at the I&E window by 0.01% to NGN386.00/USD while it appreciated by 0.6% to NGN477.00/USD at the parallel market. Low liquidity still troubles investors and exporters’ window of the market.
Money Market % Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate contracted by 250bps to 13.5%, as liquidity conditions steadily improve.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was bearish, as average yield expanded by 3bps to 1.6%. Across the curve, yield expanded at the short (+5bps) end, due to sell-off of the 57DTM (+15bps) instrument, while yield at the mid and long segments were flat. Conversely, average yield contracted by 11bps to 3.8% at the OMO secondary market.
Elsewhere, trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was mixed, with a bearish bias, as average yield expanded by 2bps to 7.8%. Across the benchmark curve, yield at the mid (-7bps) segment contracted, following demand for the MAR-2027 (-18bps) bond, while they expanded at the long (+10bps) end, due to sell-off of the APR-2037 (+32bps) bond. Average yield at the short end was unchanged.-With Cordros Research
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