March 17, 2021/Cordros Report

EQUITIES

Negative sentiments resumed in the local bourse following yesterday’s positive performance. Profit-taking in the shares of GUARANTY (-1.8%) and FBNH (-1.4%) dragged the NSE ASI lower by 4bps to close at 38,706.13 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to -2.8% and -3.9%, respectively.

The total volume of trades declined by 19.7% to 177.40 million units, valued at NGN2.68 billion and exchanged in 4,103 deals. GUARANTY was the most traded stock by volume and value at 34.20 million units and NGN957.80 million, respectively.

Performance across sectors was broadly mixed – The Insurance (-1.0%) and Banking (-0.4%) indices declined while the Oil & Gas (+1.3%) index was the lone gainer. The Industrial Goods and Consumer Goods indices closed flat.

As measured by market breadth, market sentiment turned positive (1.1x), as 12 tickers gained, relative to 11 losers. WAPIC (+10.0%) and OANDO (+9.7%) topped the gainers’ list, while NRC (-9.7%) and NEIMETH (-9.1%) recorded the largest losses of the day.
 
CURRENCY

The naira closed flat at NGN409.75/USD in the I&E window and NGN485.00/USD at the parallel market.
 
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME

The overnight lending rate expanded by 300bps to 13.5%, in the absence of any significant inflows to the system.

The NTB secondary market was mixed, as market participants shifted their focus to the bi-weekly NTB PMA today. Thus, the average yield was flat at 3.1%. Elsewhere, the average yield expanded by 6bps to 7.0% in the OMO secondary market.

Activities at the Treasury bonds secondary market was bearish, as the average yield expanded by 9bps to 9.4%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield expanded at the short (+9bps), mid (+1bp) and long (+14bp) segments due to sell-offs of the MAR-2024 (+37bps), JUL-2030 (+4bps) and APR-2049 (+48bps), respectively.

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