Standings at Nigerian Stock Exchange on Wednesday, February 14, 2018
EQUITIES
The equities market rebounded after seven consecutive sessions of losses, with the ASI appreciating by 1.11% to 42,171.80 points, following bargain hunting.
Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns improved to -4.90% and 10.27% respectively.
The Banking (+2.74%) index led the pack, following renewed interests in tier 1 and tier 2 stocks; with ZENITHBANK (+5.00%) and SKYEBANK (+10.00%) in the limelight. The Insurance (+1.29%), Consumer Goods (+0.96%), and Industrial Goods (+0.19%) indices followed suit, as investors were bullish on WAPIC (+4.92%), DANGFLOUR (+4.97%), and BERGER (+4.76%) stocks respectively. However, the Oil & Gas (-0.29%) index closed negative, as the shares of FO (-1.75%) were sold.
Market breadth turned positive, with 25 gainers and 19 losers, led by SKYEBANK (+10.00%) and FIRSTALUM (-9.09%) respectively. Total volume traded increased by 10.67% to 520.74 million units, valued at NGN4.72 billion, and exchanged in 5,694 deals.
We expect appetite to remain strong, as investors continue to hunt bargains and take position ahead of Q4-17 earnings, amidst generally improving macroeconomic conditions.
CURRENCY
The USD/NGN remained flat at NGN363 in the parallel market, while it weakened by 0.04% to NGN360.37 in the I&E FX window. Total volume traded in the I&E FX window increased by 36.5% to USD151.55 million, exchanged within the range of NGN358 to NGN361.50.
FIXED INCOME AND MONEY MARKET
The overnight lending rate dropped by 633 bps to 9.00%, following anticipation of tomorrow’s inflow via maturing OMO bills worth NGN89.08 billion.
Accordingly, activities turned bullish in the NTB market, as average yield declined by 3 bps to 14.46%. Yields contracted across all ends of the curve – short (-4 bps), mid (-1 bp), and long (-5 bps) – driven by interests in the 92DTM (-58 bps), 183DTM (-11 bps), and 235DTM (-35bps) bills respectively. At the time of writing, the result of today’s auction was unavailable.
Conversely, investors were downbeat in the bond market, with average yield inching higher by 2 bps to 13.78%. Yields closed higher at the short (+8 bps), mid (+2 bps), and long (+1 bp) ends of the curve, owing to selloffs of the JUN-2019 (+8 bps), JUL-2021 (+4 bps), and MAR-2024 (+12 bps) bonds respectively.
