MON 15 FEB, 2021-theGBJournal- Trading in the domestic equities market started the week on a positive note, following buying interests in SEPLAT (+10.0%), WAPCO (+5.1%) and Tier-1 banking stocks. Consequently, the NSE ASI inched higher by 0.3% to 40,571.67 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date loss moderated to -4.3%, while the Year-to-Date gain increased to +0.8%.
The total volume of trades declined by 47.9% to 206.24 million units, valued at NGN2.16 billion, and exchanged in 4,264 deals. ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by volume and value at 21.51 million units and NGN539.62 million, respectively.
Performance across sectors was broadly positive, following gains in the Oil & Gas (+5.4%), Banking (+1.8%), Insurance (+1.4%) and Industrial Goods (+0.4%) indices. The Consumer Goods index was flat.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive (2.3x), as 30 tickers gained, relative to 13 losers. SEPLAT (+10.0%) and MBENEFIT (+9.5%) topped the gainers’ list, while CONOIL (-10.0%) and ROYALEX (-10.0%) recorded the largest losses of the day.
Currency
The naira weakened by 1.2% to NGN409.67/USD at the I&E window but was flat at NGN473.00/USD in the parallel market.
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate declined by 50bps to 4.3%, in the absence of any significant outflows from the system.
The NTB secondary market was bearish, as average yield expanded by 2bps to 1.5%. Across the curve, average yield was flat at the short end, but expanded at the mid (+4bps) and long (+1bp) segments due to sell-offs of the 150DTM (+13bps) and 332DTM (+3bps) instruments, respectively. Elsewhere, average yield at the OMO segment declined by 23bps to 6.5%.
The Treasury bonds secondary market was bearish, as average yield expanded by 5bps to 8.9%. Across the curve, average yield pared at the short (-2bps) end following demand for the JUL-2021 (-11bps) bond, but expanded at the mid (+16bps) and long (+5bps) segments, as investors took profits off the FEB-2028 (+60bps) and JUL-2034 (+15bps) bonds, respectively.-With Cordros Research
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