April 16, 2018/Cordros Report
EQUITIES
- The equities market started the week on a positive note, as the ASI inched higher by 0.14% to 40,987.77 points.
- Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns improved to -1.25% and 7.18% respectively.
- The Industrial Goods (+0.52%), Insurance (+0.31%), and Banking (+0.17) indices posted positive returns, following interests in the shares of WAPCO (+1.12%), NEM (+5.00%), and SKYEBANK (+10%). Meanwhile, selloffs in MOBIL (-5.00%) and NB (-3.08%) shares, caused losses in the Oil & Gas (-0.72%) and Consumer Goods (-0.01%) indices.
- Market breadth turned positive, with 28 gainers and 21 losers, led by SKYEBANK (+10.00%) and UAC-PROP (-7.86%). Total volume and value of trades were higher by 15.18% and 53.30% to 192.49 million units and NGN3.13 billion respectively and exchanged in 3,917 deals.
- Our view of the market remains positive, buoyed by still-positive macroeconomic fundamentals.
CURRENCY
- The NGN/USD strengthened by 0.06% to NGN360.09 in the I&E window while it remained flat in the parallel market, exchanging at NGN363. Total turnover in the I&E FX window decreased by 73.76% to USD77.57 million, consummated within the NGN350-NGN361.00/USD band.
FIXED INCOME & MONEY MARKET
- The overnight lending rate rose slightly by 8 bps to 3.00%, against Friday’s close of 2.92%, amidst a slightly lower, albeit buoyant, system liquidity.
- Supported by healthy system liquidity, average yield contracted by 99 bps to 12.81% in the NTB market. High demand for the 59DTM (-261 bps), 129DTM (-227 bps), and 185DTM (-200bps) bills caused contractions at the short (-164 bps), mid (-95 bps), and long (-46 bps) ends of the curve, respectively.
- Similarly, activities were bullish in the bond market, as average yield declined by 22 bps to 13.09%. Yields fell across the short (-35 bps), mid (-21 bps), and long (-8 bps) ends of the curve, driven by demand for the JUN-2019 (-64 bps), MAR-2024 (-27 bps), and JUL-2030 (-11 bps) bonds, respectively.