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EQUITIES:

• The NSE-ASI maintained its positive momentum today, gaining +0.72% to close at 28,101.63pts representing a market capitalisation  of N9.72tr. Furthermore, market breadth index, a measure of investor sentiment closed positive at +0.07x as 22 stocks gained against 15 stocks that declined.
• The positive close to the market was driven by the gains in Banking heavyweights; ZENITHBANK (+80pts), GUARANTY (+77pts) and UBA (+54pts), in addition to OANDO (+29pts) and NESTLE (+23pts) which more than offset the declines in NB (-64pts) and MOBIL (-18pts).
• With this said, the Consumer Goods sector ended the session down -0.57% while all other major sector closed positive. The Banking sector was the best performer, up +3.22% while the Oil & Gas and Industrial sectors gained up +1.32% and +0.44% respectively.
• OANDO (+9.59%) led the gainers’ chart today while MOBIL (-5.00%) was the worst performer.
• Although the total volume of shares exchanged fell by -5%, total value surged +162% compared to yesterday as investors exchanged 353m units of shares worth N9.16bn. ZENITHBANK (+5.09%) led the market today with 63m units of shares accounting for c.18% of total volume.
• While the ASI performance would continue to see support from the new investment guideline for PFAs, we expect the index to retrace a bit on expectation of profit-taking. Nonetheless, we see this presenting further entry opportunity in our recommended quality names.
  

CURRENCY:

• The NGN continues to trade range-bound at the interbank market, closing at N305.45 against the USD. It was also relatively flat against the GBP and EUR, shedding  -0.53% and -0.01% to settle at N410.29 and N350.42 respectively.  At the I & E window, the NGN closed at N383.11/$.
• At the parallel market, the Naira gained +1.05% and +2.47%  respectively against the USD and GBP to close at  N381 and N485. It however closed flat against the EURO at N420.
• We expect NGN’s performance to continue to see support from FX sales by the apex bank as well as hope of improvement in liquidity at the I & E window.
  

FIXED INCOME:

• Money market rates eased slightly today, with both O/N and OBB contracting by 167bps and 417bps to close today’s session at 65% and 58% levels respectively. This may be largely due to inflow from OMO maturity of N41b which hit the system earlier today.
• The apex bank sold OMO bills worth c.N96m and c.N47.2bn in 154-day and 354-day bills at 18% and 18.6% stop rates respectively.
• In response to limited system liquidity, the bond market was relatively bearish today, as yields inched up slightly on some tenors while yields on some closed flat. Yields on the 5yr, 7yr and 10yr benchmark bonds closed flat at 16.23% , 16.08% and 16.13% respectively.
• We expect activity in subsequent session to be influenced by liquidity levels.

Below are key NSE statistics as at the end of trades:

NASD Pricelist for Wednesday 18^th May, 2017