TUE, MARCH 03 2020-theG&BJournal- The domestic equities market bucked its downward trend, as investors’ interests in Banking stocks propelled the benchmark index (+1.70%) to the highest since 9th January 2020, to settle the index point at 26,255.11. Against the foregoing, the Month-to-Date return (+0.15%) turned positive, while Year-to-Date losses moderated to -2.19%.
The total volume of trades increased by 19.26% to 387.90 million units, valued at NGN5.08 billion and exchanged in 4,901 deals. GUARANTY was the most traded stock by volume and value at 83.12 million units and NGN2.01 billion respectively.
On sector performance, the Banking index supported the market following an expansion of +7.99%, the largest expansion since January 20, 2016. Also, the Consumer Goods index widened by 1.97%. However, losses were recorded across the Industrial Goods (-4.27%), Insurance (-1.59%), Oil and Gas (-0.08%) indices.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive (1.8x), as 21 tickers gained, relative to 12 losers. PZ (+9.88%) and ACCESS (+9.74%) topped the gainer’s list, while ABCTRANS (-10.0%) and DANGSUGAR (-10.0%) recorded the largest declines.
CURRENCY
The naira was flat at NGN362.00/USD in the parallel market, while it weakened by 0.15% to NGN366.01/USD at the I&E FX window.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 16bps to 15.42% as system liquidity – estimated at NGN205.70 billion – remains buoyant.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was bullish, as the average yield pared marginally by 1bp to 4.0%. Across the curve, the long end declined marginally by 2bps, driven by buying interest in 331DTM (-23bps) instrument; the short and medium segment closed flat. Conversely, the average yield in the OMO secondary market expanded by 24bps to close at 12.1%.
The Treasury bond secondary market remained bearish, as average yield expanded by 5bps to 9.30%. Yields expanded across the mid (+15bps) and long (+1bp) segments of the curve, following selloffs of the APR-2029 (+43bps) and APR-2049 (+2bps) bond respectively. On the flip side, the short (-1bp) end of the curve pared marginally, following buying interest in the JUL-2021 (-1bp) bond.-Courtesy Cordros Securities
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