August 19, 2020/Cordros Report

EQUITIES

The domestic equities market sustained the previous session’s gains, as demand for Tier 1 bank stocks, and INTBREW (+7.1%) drove the index higher. Consequently, the NSE ASI advanced by 0.1% to 25,171.32 points with the Month-to-Date gain increasing to +1.9% while the Year-to-Date loss moderated to -6.2%.

The total volume of trades declined by 33.6% to 180.01 million units, valued at NGN1.54 billion and exchanged in 3,108 deals. ZENITHBANK was both the most traded stock by volume and by value at 35.94 million units and NGN605.18 million, respectively.

Sectoral performance was broadly mixed with gains recorded across the Banking (+0.8%), Insurance (+0.4%) and Consumer Goods (+0.2%) indices, while the Industrial Goods (-0.04%) index declined. The Oil & Gas index traded flat.

Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was flat (1.0x), as 13 tickers gained relative to 13 losers. STUDPRESS (+10.0%) and INTBREW (+7.1%) topped the gainers’ list while CAP (-10.0%) and ROYALEX (-9.7%) recorded the largest losses of the day.

CURRENCY

The naira weakened at the I&E window by 0.01% to NGN386.00/USD while it appreciated by 0.6% to NGN477.00/USD at the parallel market.

MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME

The overnight lending rate contracted by 250bps to 13.5%, as liquidity conditions steadily improve.
 
Trading in the NTB secondary market was bearish, as average yield expanded by 3bps to 1.6%. Across the curve, yield expanded at the short (+5bps) end, due to sell-off of the 57DTM (+15bps) instrument, while yield at the mid and long segments were flat. Conversely, average yield contracted by 11bps to 3.8% at the OMO secondary market.
 
Elsewhere, trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was mixed, with a bearish bias, as average yield expanded by 2bps to 7.8%. Across the benchmark curve, yield at the mid (-7bps) segment contracted, following demand for the MAR-2027 (-18bps) bond, while they expanded at the long (+10bps) end, due to sell-off of the APR-2037 (+32bps) bond. Average yield at the short end was unchanged.

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