EQUITIES
The domestic equities market opened the week on a strong footing, extending its winning streak to 23 consecutive sessions as significant gains in DANGCEM (+9.2%) and BUAFOODS (+9.4%) drove a 2.0% uptick in the benchmark index to 144,074.23 points. As a result, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns advanced to +3.0% and +40.0%, respectively.
Meanwhile, the total trading volume decreased by 24.8% to 811.10 million units, valued at NGN19.47 billion, and exchanged in 35,963 deals. FCMB was the most traded stock by volume at 84.95 million units, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at NGN2.76 billion, respectively.
Sectoral performance was largely bullish as the Industrial Goods (+5.7%), Consumer Goods (+4.9%), Insurance (+3.4%), and Banking (+0.1%) indices advanced. The Oil & Gas (-1.1%) index was the sole loser of the day.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.9x), as 43 tickers gained relative to 23 losers. UPDC (+10.0%) and ROYALEX (+10.0%) topped the gainers, while TRANSPOWER (-10.0%) and ACADEMY (-10.0%) recorded the highest losses of the day.
CURRENCY
The official FX rate remained unchanged at NGN1,520.00/USD.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate increased by 10bps to 27.0% in the absence of inflows into the system.
The Treasury bills secondary market traded with mixed sentiments, as the average yield inched up by 1bp to 17.8%. Across the curve, the average yield declined at the short (-2bps) and mid (-2bps) segments, driven by demand for the 52DTM (-3bps) and 157DTM (-3ps) bills, respectively, while it increased at the long (+6bps) end following selloffs of the 213DTM (+38bps) bill. Elsewhere, the average yield declined by 5bps to 24.7% in the OMO segment.
Proceedings in the FGN bond secondary market were bearish as the average yield increased by 5bps 16.3%.
Across the benchmark curve, the average yield increased at the short (+14bps) and mid (+3bps) segments, driven by selloffs of the APR-2039 (+34bps) and APR-2032(+42bps) bonds, respectively, while it closed flat at the long end.
