Nigerian bourse sustains bearish run as Index down 0.96% Thursday

The Nigerian equities market sustained bearish performance for the second consecutive session as the market All-Share Index (ASI) moderated by 0.96 per cent to 30,771.32 points, following sell-offs across both tier-1 and tier-2 banking stocks.

Against the foregoing, the Month-to-Date loss notched higher to 0.21 per cent.

Among sector indices, the Industrial (-2.83%), Banking (-2.15%), Insurance (-0.12%) and Consumer Goods (-0.02%) indices closed negative following losses in WAPCO (-4.17%), GUARANTY (-4.49%), SOVRENINS (-4.76%) and DANGSUGAR (-1.69%) respectively. Meanwhile, the Oil and Gas (+0.64%) closed positive on account of gains in FO (+9.64%).

Market breadth turned negative with 13 gainers and 23 losers, led by FO (+9.64%) and GLAXOSMITH (-10.00%), respectively. Total volume of trades declined by 21.1% to 169.19 million units, valued at 1.13 billion and exchanged in 3,683 deals.

“Our outlook for equities in the short to medium term remains conservative, amidst brewing political concerns, and the absence of a positive trigger. However, stable macroeconomic fundamentals remain supportive of recovery in the long term”. Analysts at Cordros Capital said.

At the foreign exchange market, the USD/NGN depreciated by 0.24 per dent to NGN365.30 in the I&E FX window, while it closed largely flat at the parallel market at NGN362.00 respectively. Total turnover in the IEW declined sharply by 614.8 per cent to USD29.38 million, with total trades consummated within the NGN365.50-360.00/USD band.

In the Fixed Income and Money Market, the overnight lending rate eased 525 bps to 14.92%, following inflows from matured OMO and treasury bills worth NGN424.51 billion and NGN84.45 billion respectively. The CBN mopped up NGN240.58 billion via OMO auction, selling NGN27.78 billion of the 91DTM, NGN42.01 billion of the 182DTM and NGN170.79 billion of the 364DTM, at respective stop rates of 11.90%, 13.50% and 15.00%.

Trading in the NTB secondary market was bearish, as average yield widened by 7 bps to 15.44%. Yields at the short (+8 bps), mid (+2 bps) and long (+9 bps) segments expanded, on the back of sell offs of the 70DTM (+125 bps), 147DTM (+30 bps) and 322DTM (+73 bps) bills, respectively.

Proceedings in the bond market were also bearish, as yield rose by 12 bps, on average, to 15.36%. Sell pressure was spread across the short (+7 bps), mid (+18bp) and long (+7 bps) segments with the JAN-2022 (+28 bps), MAR-2024 (+68 bps) and JUL-2034 (+20 bps) bonds recording respective expansions.