March 9, 2021/Cordros Report

EQUITIES

Trading on the domestic equities market reversed yesterday’s gain, as investors sold off bellwethers – MTNN (-5.9%), ZENITHBANK (-2.0%) and WAPCO (-8.0%). Consequently, the benchmark index declined by 1.8% to 38,686.85 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -2.8% and -3.9%, respectively.

The total volume of trades increased by 64.8% to 489.98 million units, valued at NGN6.65 billion, and exchanged in 4,616 deals. UBA was the most traded stock by volume at 123.27 million units, while MTNN was the most traded stock by value at NGN2.43 billion.

Performance across sectors was broadly negative, as four out of our five coverage indices – Banking (-5.3%), Insurance (-0.6%), Industrial Goods (-0.5%) and Oil & Gas (-0.2%) indices – closed in the red. The Consumer Goods (+0.4%) index was the lone gainer.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment turned negative (0.6x), as 24 tickers lost relative to 14 gainers. ETERNA (-10.0%) and UBA (-10.0%) recorded the largest losses of the day, while CHAMPION (+9.8%) and NEIMETH (+9.7%) topped the gainers’ list.
 
CURRENCY

The naira was flat at NGN412.00/USD at the I&E window and weakened by 0.4% to NGN484.00/USD in the parallel market.

MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME

The overnight lending rate declined by 25bps to 11.5%, following inflows into the system from OMO maturities (NGN60.00 billion).

The NTB secondary market was mixed, as market participants position for tomorrow’s auction, where the CBN will likely roll over NGN84.50 billion worth of instruments. Thus, the average yield was flat at 2.1%. Elsewhere, the OMO secondary market’s average yield expanded by 42bps to 6.6%.

The Treasury bonds secondary market closed on a bullish note, as the average yield in the space pared by 2bps to 9.3%. The average yield was unchanged at the short and mid segments across the benchmark curve but declined at the long (-5bps) end due to demand for the benchmark 30-year bond – the MAR-2050 (-17bps) bond.

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