THUR 27 MAY, 2021-theGBJournal- Trading in the domestic equities market was positive for most of the day. However, late sell-offs of top cement player — DANGCEM (-2.9%) dipped the market further into the bear territory. Thus, the NGX ASI declined by 0.5% to 38,044.58 points. Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -4.5% and -5.5%, respectively.
The total volume of trades increased by 5.5% to 214.17 million units, valued at NGN1.34 billion and exchanged in 3,565 deals. SOVRENINS was the most traded stock by volume at 27.17 million units, while GUARANTY was the most traded stock by value at NGN226.33 million.
Sectoral performance was broadly negative as the Industrial Goods (-1.1%), Banking (-0.4%), and Insurance (-0.3%) indices declined. The Consumer Goods (+0.1%) index was the lone gainer, while the Oil & Gas index was flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.8x), as 20 tickers lost relative to 16 gainers. SOVRENINS (-10.0%) and ABCTRANS (-8.1%) topped the losers’ list, while MBENEFIT (+7.3%) and REGALINS (+7.1%) recorded the most significant gains of the day.
Currency
The naira appreciated at the I&E window by 0.1% to NGN411.00/USD but depreciated by 0.4% to NGN495.00/USD in the parallel market.
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate contracted by 50bps to 13.5%, following debits for CBN’s weekly OMO auction.
The NTB secondary market traded on a bearish note, as the average yield expanded by 23bps to 6.1%. Across the benchmark curve, average yield expanded at the short (+72bps), mid (+2bps) and long (+10bps) segments following sell-offs of the 14DTM (+101bps), 105DTM (+13bps) and 336DTM (+60bps) bills. Elsewhere, the average yield at the OMO segment contracted by 2bps to 9.7%.
Trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was also bearish, as the average yield expanded by 4bps to 12.5%. Across the benchmark curve, average yield expanded at the short (+17bps) end due to sell-off of the JUL-2021 (+74bps) but contracted at the mid (-4bps) and long (-2bps) segments following demand for the MAR-2027 (-15bps) and the APR-2049 (-16bps) bonds.-With Cordros Research
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