EQUITIES
The domestic bourse started the week’s trading on a bullish note, driven by buying interest in SEPLAT (+10.0%), following the Federal Government’s approval of their acquisition of Exxon Mobil’s onshore assets, and UBA (+4.3%), spurred by the release of their impressive 9M-24 results. Consequently, the NGX ASI advanced by 0.6% to close at 98,694.80 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed +0.1% and +32.0%, respectively.
The total volume of trades increased by 12.9% to 405.02 million units, valued at NGN27.57 billion, and exchanged in 8,4281 deals. UBA was the most traded stock by volume at 138.15 million units, while SEPLAT was the most traded stock by value at NGN18.35 billion, respectively.
On sectors, the Oil & Gas (+4.4%), Insurance (+1.1%), Banking (+1.0%), and Consumer Goods (+0.2%) indices posted gains, while the Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.8x), as 31 tickers gained relative to 17 losers. DAARCOMM (+10.0%) and IKEJAHOTEL (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list, while REGALINS (-8.2%) and NSLTECH (-6.5%) recorded the highest losses of the day.
CURRENCY
The naira depreciated by 0.2% to NGN1,603.16/USD in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM).
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 6bps to 32.5% in the absence of any significant inflows into the system.
The Treasury bills secondary market traded on a bearish note, as the average yield expanded by 2bps to 24.2%. Across the curve, the average yield declined at the short (-4bps) and long (-2bps) ends, driven by demand for the 80DTM (-4bps) and 318DTM (-84bps) bills, respectively but expanded at the mid (+13bps) segment due to profit-taking activities on the 157DTM (+90bps) bill. Conversely, the average yield dipped by 5bps to 25.9% in the OMO segment.
The FGN bonds secondary market opened the week on a tepid note, albeit with a bearish tilt, as investors awaited the results of today’s bond PMA. Thus, the average yield expanded by 1bp to 19.1%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield increased at the short (+5bps) end, as investors sold off the MAR-2025 (+16bps) bond, but was unchanged at the mid and long segments.
