MON MARCH 03 2025-theGBJournal| The Nigerian equities market wobbled down Monday to start March trading, struggling for breath as investors move from the equities market to the fixed income space ahead of anticipated rate cuts and decline in yields.
The benchmark index, the All-Share Index fell 0.3% to close at 107,455.13 points, with the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printing -0.3% and +4.4%, respectively.
Big bank stocks FBNH (-3.2%), GTCO (-1.6%), UBA (-2.2%), ACCESS HOLDINGS PLC (-2.54) and FBN HOLDINGS PLC (-3.24) all lost ground.
The total volume of trades declined by 32.8% to 308.09 million units, valued at NGN7.23 billion, and exchanged in 15,474 deals.
ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by volume and value at 32.37 million units and NGN1.56 billion, respectively.
Sectoral performance was mixed, as the Banking (-1.2%), Consumer Goods (-1.0%) and Insurance (-0.6%) indices recorded declines, while the Oil & Gas (+0.4%) index advanced. The Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.6x), as 18 tickers gained relative to 32 losers. IKEJAHOTEL (-9.9%) and UCAP (-9.9%) recorded the highest losses of the day, while LEARNAFRCA (+10.0%) and NGXGROUP (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list.
At the currency market, the official FX rate gained 0.1% to N1,499.10/USD as the Central Bank of Nigeria intervention stays on course. The gain follows last week’s gains in both the official and parallel markets.
At the close of the week last Friday, the official and street market rates were trading at almost par.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 50bps to 26.8% following inflows from FGN bond coupon (NGN279.29 billion).
The NTB secondary market closed on a bearish note, as the average yield expanded by 1bp to 19.9%.
Across the curve, the average yield expanded at the short (+19bps) end due to profit taking activities on the 24DTM (+126bps) bill but declined at the mid (-3bps) and long (-6bps) segments driven by buying interests in the 171DTM (-3bps) and 297DTM (-35bps) bills, respectively. Conversely, the average yield declined by 4bps to 22.5% in the OMO segment.
The FGN bond secondary market traded with bearish sentiments, as the average yield expanded by 8bps to 18.4%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield increased at the short (+25bps) segment as investors sold off the MAR-2025 (+147bps) bond but closed flat at the mid and long segments.
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