November 12, 2020/Cordros Report

EQUITIES

The bulls continued to dominate activities in the Nigerian equities market with an added twist, as the NSE ASI rose above the set 5% threshold and triggered the market’s circuit breaker – the first time since its introduction in 2016 – at 12:55 pm, which paused trading activities for 30-minutes. Upon the resumption of trading at 1:25 pm, activities kicked on from where they left off, and the ASI eventually settled at 35,342.46 points, translating to a whopping 6.2% gain. In terms of drivers, bellwethers – majorly DANGCEM (+8.1%), BUACEMENT (+10.0%), AIRTELAFRI (+10.0%), ZENITHBANK (+10.0%) and GUARANTY (+6.1%) – continued to dictate proceedings. Consequently, Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date gains increased to 15.8% and 31.7%, respectively.

The total volume of trades increased by 36.9% to 1.18 billion units, valued at NGN17.18 billion, and exchanged in 10,551 deals. ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by volume and value at 161.38 million units and NGN4.46 billion, respectively.

Sectoral performance mirrored the general performance of the market, as our coverage indices – Industrial Goods (+8.7%), Banking (+7.9%), Consumer Goods (+5.8%), Insurance (+4.8%) and Oil & Gas (+2.0%) – recorded significant gains.

Market sentiment, as measured by market breadth, was positive (8.1x), as 65 tickers gained, relative to 8 losers. CILEASING (+10.0%) and NNFM (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list, while GSPECPLC (-9.9%) and ETERNA (-9.9%) recorded the largest losses of the day.

CURRENCY

The naira was unchanged at NGN385.67/USD at the I&E window but weakened by 0.2% to NGN467.00/USD in the parallel market.

MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME

The overnight lending rate contracted by 30bps to 0.8%, in the absence of any major funding pressures on the system.

Trading in the NTB secondary market was mixed, with a bullish tilt, as average yield pared by 2bps to 0.4%. Across the curve, average yield was flat at the short and mid segments, but contacted at the long (-3bps) end, following buying interests in the 322DTM (-18bps) instrument. Elsewhere, average yield was flat at 0.2% at the OMO secondary market.

The Treasury bond secondary market was also mixed, with bullish bias, as average yield pared by 1bp to 4.0%. Across the curve, average yield contracted at the short (-3bps) end, due to the demand for the APR-2023 (-12bps) bond, but was flat at the mid and long segments.

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