MON 22 MARCH, 2021-theGBJournal- The domestic equities market opened the week on a positive note, as the NSE ASI advance by 0.9% to 38,722.87 points. The performance was buoyed by buying interests in BUACEMENT (+5.1%), STANBIC NL (+10.0%) and INTBREW NL (+5.9%) stocks. Accordingly, Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses moderated to -2.7% and -3.8%, respectively.
The total volume of trades decreased by 4.6% to 277.24 million units, valued at NGN3.05 billion and exchanged in 4,299 deals. UBN was the most traded stock by volume at 79.89 million units, while GUARANTY was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.12 billion.
The performance across sectors was positive, following gains in the Industrial Goods (+2.1%), Insurance (0.4%), Consumer Goods (0.3%) and Oil & Gas (+0.1%) indices. The Banking index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (3.7x), as 26 tickers gained, relative to 7 losers. STANBIC (+10.0%) and JBERGER (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list while CHAMPION (-8.2%) and JAIZBANK (-4.5%) recorded the most losses of the day.
Currency
The naira was flat at NGN410.13/USD at the IEW window but depreciated by 0.2% to NGN486.00/USD in the parallel market.
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate dipped by 10.75ppts to 14.8 in the absence of any significant outflows from the system.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was muted as average yield closed flat at 3.5%. Elsewhere, the OMO segment’s average yield declined by 22bps to 6.4%.
Trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was bearish, as the average yield expanded slightly by 1bp to 9.4%. Across the benchmark curve, average yield contracted at the short (-8bps) end, following demand for the APR-2023 (-41bps) bond, but expanded at the long end (+9bps) as investors sold-off the MAR-2050 (+30bps) bond; the mid-segment was unchanged.- With Cordros Research.
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