NSE begins April bearish, down 1.66% Monday

The Nigerian equities market closed the first trading session of the week on a negative note as the benchmark index declined by 1.66 per cent to 30,527.50 points, driven by broad sell-offs across all sectors.

As a result, the Year-to-Date return deteriorated to -2.87 per cent.

On sectoral performance, the Consumer Goods (-4.92%), Industrial Goods (-3.00%), Insurance (-0.54%), Banking (-0.43%), and Oil & Gas (-1.38%) indices all closed in red, following selloffs in NESTLE (-8.23%), BETAGLAS (-9.94%), MBENEFIT (-9.09%), ETI (-3.41%), and OANDO (-9.73%), respectively.

Market breadth was negative, with 19 losers and 11 gainers, led by UNIONDAC (-10.00%) and BERGER (+9.70%) shares, respectively.

Total volume of trades surged 546.1 per cent to 1.72 billion units (amidst a cross of WEMABANK — 1.39 billion units at NGN0.72/s), valued at NGN3.67 billion, and exchanged in 3,251 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 appreciated slightly by 0.02 per cent to NGN360.60 in the I&E FX window, but closed flat at NGN360.00 at the parallel market.

Total turnover in the IEW increased by 77.23 per cent to USD359.33 million, with trades consummated within the NGN330.00-NGN361.50/USD band.

At the fixed income and money market, the overnight lending rate fell 510 bps to 5.57 per cent, from 10.67 per cent in the previous session, following inflows from FAAC disbursements late last Friday.

Trading in the treasury bills market was bullish, as average yield compressed 16 bps to close at 13.39 per cent. Yields contracted at the short (-17 bps), mid (-25 bps), and long (-12 bps) segments, owing to demand for the 66DTM (-54 bps), 129DTM (-85 bps), and 255DTM (-41 bps) bills, respectively.

Activities in the bond market were bearish, as average yield rose 10 bps to 14.08 per cent. Selloffs were spread across the short (+16 bps), mid (+7 bps) and long (+4 bps) segments, with respective yields on the JAN-2022 (+16 bps), MAR-2027 (+18 bps) and JUL-2034 (+10 bps) bonds expanding.