Nigerian bourse opens the week negative as Index down 0.06%

The Nigerian equities market began the week on a negative note as the benchmark index declined slightly, by 0.06 per cent, to 31,125.39 points, driven by selloffs across small-cap Financial services stocks.

Thus, the Month-to-Date and the Year-to-Date returns decreased to -2.50 per cent and -0.97 per cent respectively.

On sectoral performance, gains in the Consumer Goods (+0.11%) and Industrial Goods (+0.03%) indices were not enough to offset losses in the Insurance (-1.82%), and Banking (-0.23%) indices.

Meanwhile the Oil & Gas index closed flat. Notable stocks include DANGFLOUR (+7.35%), WAPCO (+0.78%), NEM (-6.00%) and ZENITHBANK (-0.45%).

Market breadth was negative, with 20 losers and 11 gainers, led by IKEJAHOTEL (-9.66%) and DANGFLOUR (+7.35%) shares, respectively.

Volume of trades decreased by 1.86 per cent to 205.73 million units, valued at NGN1.93 billion, and exchanged in 3,821 deals.

“In the absence of a positive catalyst, we guide investors to trade cautiously in the short term. However, stable macroeconomic fundamentals and compelling valuation remain supportive of recovery in the mid-to-long term”, analysts at Cordros Capital said

In the currency market, the USD/NGN depreciated by 0.12 per cent to NGN360.61 in the I&E FX window, and by0.28 per cent to NGN360.00 at the parallel market. Total turnover in the IEW increased by 48.69% to USD458.95 million in last Friday’s session, with trades consummated within the NGN356.00-NGN364.15/USD band.

At the  fixed income and money market, the overnight lending rate fell by 8bps to 11.58 per cent, from 11.67 per cent in the previous session, following inflows from bond coupon payments (NGN90.97 billion).

Trading in the treasury bills market was mixed, as average yield shed 1 bp to close at 13.30 per cent. Yields expanded at the short (+2bp) and mid (+3 bps) segments, owing to selloffs of the 94DTM (+33 bps) and 136DTM (+114 bps) bills, respectively. Conversely, yield contracted at the long (-4 bps) end of the curve, following demand for the 241DTM (-26 bps) bill.

Activities in the bond market were bearish, as average yield rose 3 bps to 14.19 per cent. Selloffs were spread across the short (+4 bps), mid (+1 bp) and long (+3 bps) segments, with respective yields on the JUN-2019 (+15 bps), MAR-2027 (+3 bps) and APR-2037 (+4 bps) bonds expanding.