EQUITIES
Profit-taking activities continued today in the Nigerian equities market, as the selloff in GTCO (-3.1%), WAPCO (-3.0%) and DANGSUGAR (-5.5%) drove the All-Share Index lower by 0.5% to 140,557.24 points. Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns settled lower at +0.5% and +36.6%, respectively.
The total volume traded advanced by 29.6% to 885.0 million units, valued at NGN28.30 billion, and exchanged in 26,163 deals. CHAMPION was the most traded stock by volume at 201.05 million units, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at NGN8.89 billion.
Sectoral performance was mixed as the Banking (-1.4%), Consumer Goods (-0.9%) and Industrial Goods (-0.5%) indices declined, while the Insurance (+0.4%) index advanced. The Oil & Gas index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.4x), as 17 tickers gained relative to 38 losers. INTENEGINS (-9.6%) and OMATEK (-9.0%) recorded the most significant losses of the day, while SCOA (+10.0%) and RTBRISCOE (+9.8%) led the gainers.
CURRENCY
The official FX rate appreciated by 0.4% to NGN1,534.60/USD.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate expanded by 8bps to 27.0%, in the absence of any significant funding pressure on the system.
The NTB secondary market traded on a bearish note as the average yield expanded by 16bps to 18.8%. Across the curve, the average yield expanded at the short (+18bps), mid (+1bp) and long (+23bps) segments, driven by the selloff of the 84DTM (+79bps), 161DTM (+52bps) and 329DTM (+127bps) bills, respectively. Similarly, the average yield expanded by 1bp to 25.5% in the OMO segment.
Elsewhere, the FGN bond secondary market traded with bearish sentiments as the average yield expanded by 23bps to 16.9%.
Across the benchmark curve, the average yield expanded at the short (+9bps), mid (+56bps) and long (+13bps) segments, driven by profit-taking activities on the JUL-2030 (+54bps), JUL-2034 (+165bps) and the MAR-2036 (+106bps) bonds, respectively.
