EQUITIES
The bulls continued to dominate activities in the domestic bourse as bargain hunting in SEPLAT (+10.0%) triggered a 0.5% gain in the benchmark index to 99,276.03 points. As a result, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date gains settled higher at +1.1% and +32.8%, respectively.
The total trading volume dipped by 40.3% to 309.71 million units, valued at NGN5.44 billion, and exchanged in 7,035 deals. ACCESSCORP was the most traded stock by volume at 51.78 million units, while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.31 billion.
Analysing by sectors, the Oil & Gas (+6.0%), Banking (+1.4%) and Insurance (+0.4%) indices advanced, while the Consumer Goods (-0.1%) index declined. Elsewhere, the Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (2.6x), as 31 tickers gained relative to 12 losers. INTENEGINS (+10.0%) and SEPLAT (+10.0%) recorded the most significant gains of the day, while CORNERST (-8.8%) and INTBREW (-8.8%) topped the losers’ list.
CURRENCY
The naira depreciated by 10.5% to NGN1,484.75/USD at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM).
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 244bps to 29.6%, despite settlements for the OMO auction (NGN500.00 billion) conducted yesterday.
The Treasury bills secondary market traded on a bearish note, as the average yield expanded by 5bps to 21.9%. Across the curve, the average yield advanced at the short (+11bps) and long (+6bps) ends as investors sold off the 84DTM (+70bps) and 266DTM (+89bps) bills, respectively. Conversely, the average yield declined slightly at the mid (-1bp) segment driven by mild interest in the 175DTM (-1bp) bill. Meanwhile, the average yield pared by 1bp to 21.4% in the OMO segment.
Proceedings in the FGN bond secondary market were muted as the average yield remained at 18.5%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield increased moderately at the short (+1bp) end due to sell pressures on the MAR-2025 (+2bps) bond but was unchanged at the mid and long segments.
