WED SEPT 16, 2020-theGBJournal-Profit taking continued today in the domestic equities market, with WAPCO (-3.7%) and Tier I bank stocks weighing down the bourse. Consequently, the ASI ended the session 0.2% lower at 25,550.31 points. The Month-to-Date gain moderated to 0.9% while Year-to-Date loss increased to -4.8%.
The total volume traded declined by 13.6% to 211.82 million units, valued at NGN2.42 billion and exchanged in 3,651 deals. FCMB was the most traded stock by volume at 30.33 million units while MTNN was the most trade stock by value at NGN1.06 billion.
The top five traded stocks by value were MTNN (N 1,062,911,685.10), ZENITHBANK (N306,340,033.75), ACCESS (N139,403,579.80), GUARANTY (N116,282,662.90) and UBA (109,651,119.40).
Analyzing by sectors, the Oil & Gas (+0.4%) and Consumer Goods (+0.1%) indices posted gains while losses were recorded in the Insurance (-1.5%), Banking (-0.6%) and Industrial Goods (-0.2%) indices.
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was negative (0.9x), as 17 tickers gained relative to 19 losers. ROYALEX (-10.0%) and NEM (-9.8%) recorded the largest losses of the day while LEARNAFRCA (+9.6%) and BERGER (+7.4%) topped the gainers’ list.
Currency
The naira was flat at the I&E window at NGN386.00/ USD, while it weakened by 1.1% to NGN465/USD in the parallel market. The official (CBN) rate also stayed flat at N380.00/$
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate contracted by 120bps to 4.0%, in the absence of any significant outflows from the system.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was mixed, as market participants shifted their focus to today’s PMA. Thus, average yield was flat at 1.7%. Conversely, at the OMO secondary market, average yield pared by 1bp to 2.3%.
Elsewhere, trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was mixed, as average yield was flat at 7.4%. Across the curve, yield contracted at the mid (-2bps) segment following buying interest in the JUL-2030 (-12bps) bond, while they expanded at the long (+2bps) end, due to sell-off of the MAR-2036 (+10bps) bond. Yield was unchanged at the short end.-With Cordros Research
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