EQUITIES
The Nigerian equities market opened the week on a bearish note as sell pressures on ACCESSCORP (-3.1%), ARADEL (-9.2%), UNILEVER (-4.3%), and DANGSUGAR (-2.6%) drove the All-Share Index lower by 0.3% to 153,739.11 points. Consequently, the Year-to-Date returns moderated to +49.4%.
The total volume of trade declined by 87.9% to 627.50 million units, valued at NGN25.00 billion, and exchanged in 36,425.00 deals. UBA was the most traded stock by volume and value, at 136.84 million units and NGN5.54 billion, respectively.
Sectoral performance was mixed as the Oil & Gas (-3.9%), Insurance (-1.5%) and Banking (-0.2%) indices closed lower, while the Consumer Goods (+0.5%) index was the sole gainer of the day. The Industrial Goods index remained unchanged.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.5x), as 36 tickers lost relative to 19 gainers. HONYFLOUR (-10.0%) and NNFM (-10.0%) posted the most significant losses of the day, while UNIONDICON (+10.0%) and OMATEK (+10.0%) led the gainers.
CURRENCY
The official FX rate appreciated by 0.2% to NGN1,436.50/USD.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate remained unchanged at 24.9%.
Activities in the Treasury bills secondary market was quiet, albeit with a bullish tone, as the average yield contracted by 1bp to 17.5%. Across the curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-2bps) and mid (-3bps) segments, driven by the demand for the 80DTM (-3bps) and 122DTM (-9bps) bills, respectively but remained unchanged at the long end. Similarly, the average yield contracted by 6bps to 22.0% in the OMO segment.
Elsewhere, the FGN bond secondary market traded on a bullish note, as the average yield contracted by 2bps to 15.8%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-6bps) and mid (-2bps) segments, driven by demand for the FEB-2028 (-26bps) and APR-2032 (-6bps) bonds respectively, but remained unchanged at the long end.
