EQUITIES
Profit-taking activities continued today in the Nigerian equities market, with DANGSUGAR (-7.9%), TRANSCORP (-2.3%) and SEPLAT (-1.3%) weighing down the bourse. Consequently, the ASI ended the session 0.4% lower to 145,300.01 points with the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns moderating to +3.9% and +41.2%, respectively.
The total volume traded advanced by 83.0% to 2.46 billion units, valued at NGN22.22 billion, and exchanged in 43,515 deals. UNIVINSURE was the most traded stock by volume at 390.40 million units, while NB was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.87 billion.
Sectoral performance was broadly negative as the Insurance (-8.3%), Banking (-0.5%), Consumer Goods (-0.2%) and Oil & Gas (-0.1%) indices declined, while the Industrial Goods (+0.1%) index advanced.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.5x), as 22 tickers gained relative to 48 losers. WEMABANK (-10.0%) and LASACO (-10.0%) recorded the most significant losses of the day, while JULI (+10.0%) and AUSTINLAZ (+9.9%) led the gainers.
CURRENCY
The official FX rate depreciated by 0.7% to NGN1,534.00/USD.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate expanded by 10bps to 32.6%, in the absence of any significant funding pressure on the system.
The NTB secondary market traded on a calm note with a bullish undertone, as the average yield pared by 1bp to 17.9%. Across the curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-1bp), mid (-3bps) and long (-1bp) segments, driven by the demand for the 84DTM (-1bp), 175DTM (-18bps), and 357DTM (-1bp) bills, respectively. Conversely, the average yield expanded by 10bps to 24.5% in the OMO segment.
Elsewhere, the FGN bond secondary market was bearish, as the average yield expanded by 3bps to 16.3%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-2bps) end, driven by the demand for the JAN-2026 (-15bps) bond, but expanded at the mid (+10bps) and long (+1bp) segments due to profit-taking activities on the APR-2032 (+24bps) and JAN-2053 (+7bps) bonds, respectively.
