Mixed trading continued on wednesday at the local bourse, however with a bearish tilt as late selloffs of STANBIC (-3.2%) led the benchmark index 2bps lower at 43,245.02 points. Consequently, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns were unchanged at +2.9% and +7.4%, respectively.
The total volume traded increased by 11.6% to 243.19 million units, valued at NGN3.75 billion, and exchanged in 3,777 deals. ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by volume at 37.41 million units, while NESTLE was the most traded stock by value at NGN1.06 billion.
Sectoral performance was broadly positive as the Insurance (+2.1%), Banking (+0.3%), Industrial Goods (+0.1%), and Consumer Goods (+0.1%) indices posted gains while the Oil and Gas (-0.2%) index declined.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.2x) as 21 tickers gained relative to 17 losers. CHAMS (+9.5%) and AIICO (+9.3%) recorded the highest gains of the day, while HONYFLOUR (-9.8%) and ETERNA (-9.0%) topped the losers’ list.
CURRENCY
The naira depreciated by 0.1% to NGN415.07/USD at the I&E window.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate contracted by 652bps to 9.5% in the absence of any significant funding pressures on the system.
The NTB secondary market was quiet as market participants positioned for today’s PMA. Thus, the average yield stayed flat at 5.1%. Elsewhere, the average yield expanded slightly by 1bp to 5.5% at the OMO segment.
Trading in the Treasury bond secondary market was mixed, although with a bearish tilt, as the average yield expanded slightly by 1bp to 11.3%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield contracted at the short (-6bps) end due to demand for the APR-2023 (-27bps) bond but expanded at mid (+7bps) and long (+2bps) segments as market participants sold off the APR-2029 (+15bps) and MAR-2050 (+15bps) bonds, respectively.
