September 8, 2020/Cordros Report

EQUITIES

Profit-taking continued today across the equities market, with banking stocks bearing the brunt of the selloffs. Consequently, the ASI closed 0.3% lower at the end of the session at 25,497.32 points. The Month-to-Date gain moderated to 0.7% while Year-to-Date loss increased to -5.0%.
 
The total volume traded declined by 1.2% to 251.96 million units, valued at NGN2.04 billion and exchanged in 4,185 deals. CUSTODIAN was the most traded stock by volume at 40.13 million units while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at NGN444.80 million.
 
On sectors, gains were recorded in the Consumer Goods (+0.4%) and Insurance (+0.3%) indices, while the Banking (-3.4%) index was the sole loser of the day. The Industrial Goods and Oil & Gas indices closed flat.
 
Market sentiment, as measured by the market breadth, was negative (0.5x), as 10 tickers gained relative to 19 losers. ARBICO (-9.7%) and ROYALEX (-9.1%) recorded the largest losses of the day while HONYFLOUR (+4.4%) and TRANSCORP (+3.5%) topped the gainers’ list.
 
CURRENCY

The naira weakened at the I&E window by 0.1% to NGN386.21/USD, while it strengthened by 0.5% to NGN443.00 in the parallel market.

MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME

The overnight lending rate contracted by 15ps to 2.1%, in the absence of any significant outflows from the system.
 
Trading in the NTB secondary market was bullish, as average yield contracted by 3bps to 1.9%. Across the curve, yield contracted at the short (-9bps) and mid (-1bp) segments, due to demand for the 51DTM (-23bps) and 114DTM (-4bps) instruments, respectively, while they remained flat at the long end. Similarly, average yield contracted by 18bps to 2.6% at the OMO secondary market.
 
Elsewhere, trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was bullish, as average yield contracted by 6bps to 7.8%. Across the curve, yield contacted at the short (-11bps) end, following buying interests in the MAR-2024 (-102bps) instrument, while they expanded at the mid (+6bps) segment, due to sell-offs of the MAR-2027 (+36bps) instrument. Yield was unchanged at the long end.

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