MON 22 FEB, 2021-theGBJournal- The domestic equities market opened the week with negative trading, following profit-taking activities on WAPCO (-8.0%), FIDELITYBK (-3.2%) and UCAP (-5.5%) stocks. Thus, the benchmark declined by 0.1% to 40,154.09 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -5.3% and -0.3%, respectively.
The total volume traded declined by 6.0% to 289.34 million units, valued at NGN3.57 billion, and exchanged in 4,953 deals. FBNH was the most traded stock by volume at 57.56 million units, while GUARANTY was the most traded stock by value at NGN820.55 million.
Analysing by sectors, the Banking (+0.2%) and Oil & Gas (+0.1%) indices recorded gains, while the Industrial Goods (-0.6%), Insurance (-0.1%), and Consumer Goods (-0.1%) indices recorded declines.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.8x), as 25 tickers declined, relative to 19 gainers. AFRIPRUD (-9.6%) and LASACO (-9.5%) recorded the largest losses of the day, while UPDCREIT (+9.4%) and CHIPLC (+9.1%) topped the gainers’ list.
Currency
The naira was flat at NGN410.00/USD at the I&E window but weakened by 0.4% to NGN480.00/USD in the parallel market.
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate dipped by 525bps to 15.3%, in the absence of any significant outflows from the system.
The NTB secondary market was bullish, as the average yield declined by 3bps to 1.5%. Across the curve, average yield contracted at the mid (-10bps) segment due to demand for the 157DTM (-51bps) instrument but was unchanged at the short and long ends. Elsewhere, the OMO segment’s average yield was flat at 6.4%.
Conversely, the Treasury bonds secondary market was bearish, as the average yield expanded by 15bps to 9.4%. Across the curve, average yield pared at the short (-1bp) end, following mild interest in the JUL-2021 (-2bps) bond, but expanded at the long (+37bps) end, as investors sold off the MAR-2036 (+93bps) bond; the mid-segment was unchanged.
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