THUR, APRIL 16 2020-theG&BJournal- The Nigerian equities market ended the today’s trading session on a positive note as demand for bellwether stocks – MTNN (+3.6%), NESTLE (+10.0%), and DANGCEM (+2.2%) – supported the market to record its third straight gain of the week. This is despite the sell-off of Tier banks’ stocks. Thus, the All-Share Index gained 0.1% to 22,554.84 points. Accordingly, Month-to-date gain increased to 5.9% as Year-to-Date losses moderated to -16.0%.
The total volume of trades increased by 16.1% to 379.11 million units, valued at NGN4.33 billion and exchanged in 5,985 deals. ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by volume and value at 84.56 million units and NGN1.25 billion, respectively.
Analysing by sectors, gains recorded in the Consumer Goods (+5.7%), Insurance (+1.2%) and Oil and Gas (+0.3%) indices masked the declines in the Banking (+4.5%) Industrial Goods (-0.1%) indices. Therefore, sectoral performance was broadly positive.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was negative (0.9x), as 20 tickers declined, relative to 17 gainers. ACCESS (-10.0%) and STERLNBANK (-10.0%) recorded the largest losses, while NESTLE (+10.0%) and NB (+9.9%) were the top gainers of the day.
Currency
The naira weakened at the parallel market and I&E FX window by 1.2% and 0.1% to NGN416/USD and NGN386.00/USD, respectively.
Money and fixed income
The overnight lending rate expanded by 25bps to 2.7%, as system liquidity remains healthy.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was mixed, as average yield across instruments was flat at 3.1%. Conversely, average yield contracted by 19bps to 11.9% in the OMO secondary market. At today’s OMO bills auction, the CBN fully allotted instruments worth NGN134 billion – NGN16 billion of the 82DTM, NGN18 billion of the 166DTM and NGN100 billion of 334DTM at respective stop rates of 11.5%, 11.5% and 12.8%.
Trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was bullish as average yield contracted by 5bps to 11.0%. Across the curve, yields contracted at the short (-1bp), mid (-10bps) and long (-4bps) segments of the curve, following buying interests in the JUL-2021 (-2bps), MAR-2027 (-30bps) and JUL-2034 (-19bps) bonds, respectively.-With Cordros Research.
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