April 23, 2020/Cordros Report
EQUITIES
Sentiments in the domestic were bearish, as sell pressure witnessed in bellwether stocks – DANGCEM (-3.3%), BUACEMENT (-5.3%), and NESTLE (-6.7%) – caused the All-Share Index to decline by 1.4% to 22,470.79 points. The move is the biggest since falling by 2.0% on April 6, 2020. Accordingly, Month-to-date gain decreased to 5.5% as Year-to-Date losses increased to -16.3%.
The total volume of trades increased by 8.2% to 201.48 million units, valued at NGN3.36 billion and exchanged in 3,381 deals. ACCESS was the most traded stock by volume at 46.81 million units while NESTLE was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.64 billion.
Sectoral performance was negative, as all sectoral indices declined save for the Banking (+0.7%) index. The Industrial Goods (-3.8%) index recorded the largest loss, followed by the Consumer Goods (-3.3%), Oil and Gas (-0.2%) and Insurance (-0.1%) indices.
Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive (1.2x), as 17 tickers gained, relative to 14 losers. JAIZBANK (+10.0%) and CADBURY (+9.5%) were the top gainers of the day, while ETI (-10.0%) and UACN (-10.0%) were the top losers of the day.
CURRENCY
The naira weakened at the parallel market by 1.2% to NGN430.00/USD, while it was flat at NGN383.00/USD at the I&E FX window.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 10bps to 2.0%, as inflows from OMO maturities (NGN226.78 billion) came into the system.
Trading in the NTB secondary market was bullish, as average yield across instruments pared by 4bps to 2.7%. Across the curve, yields contracted at the mid (-6bps) and long (-6bps) segments following buying interest in the 161DTM (-15bps) and 217DTM (-23bps) instruments; the short end was flat. Similarly, average yield contracted by 14bps to 10.1% in the OMO secondary market.
Trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was bullish, as investors covered for lost bids at yesterday’s auction. Thus, average yield contracted by 29bps to 10.6%. Across the curve, yields pared at the short (-30bps), mid (-49bps) and long (-12) segments following demand for the MAR-2024 (-117bps), JAN-2026 (-235bps) and JUL-2034 (-37bps) bonds, respectively.