Nigerian bourse maintains bearish run as Index down 0.45% Wednesday

The Nigerian equities market sustained its bearish run for the third consecutive day as the benchmark index declined by 0.45 per cent to 28,966.41 points, driven by sell-offs across large cap Banking and Industrial Goods stocks.

Thus, the Month-to-Date and the Year-to-Date losses increased to -0.66 per cent and -7.84 per cent respectively.

On sectoral performance, the Industrial Goods (-0.16%), Banking (-0.77%), Insurance (-0.42%), and Oil & Gas (-1.14%) indices closed in the red, while the Consumer Goods (+0.12%) index closed positive.

Notable stocks include DANGCEM (-1.10%), GUARANTY (-2.12%), LINKASSURE (-5.88%), MOBIL (-1.14%), and DANGFLOUR (+5.00%), respectively.

Market breadth was flat, with 21 losers and 21 gainers, led by GOLDINSURE (-10.00%) and BETAGLAS (+9.97%) shares, respectively. Total volume of trades decreased by 24.51% to 324.81 million units, valued at NGN3.24 billion, and exchanged in 3,631 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 0.06 per cent to NGN361.20 in the I&E FX window, while it appreciated by 0.27 per cent to NGN360.00 at the parallel market. Total turnover in the IEW increased by 44.13 per cent to USD157.85 million, with trades consummated within the NGN310.00-NGN362.50/USD band.

In the money market & fixed income, the overnight lending rate contracted by 422 bps to 6.64 per cent in the absence of any significant outflows.

Activities in the treasury bills market were bullish, as the average yield compressed by 9 bps to close at 12.98. Demand was evident across short (-22 bps), mid (-6 bps) and long (-5 bps) segments of the curve, with respective yields on 36DTM (-137 bps), 113DTM (-18 bps) and 288DTM (-28 bps) bills contracting.

Trading in the bond market was bullish, as average yield shrank by 3 bps to close at 14.19 per cent. Demand for JAN-2022 (-26 bps), MAR-2027 (-5 bps) and JUL 2034 (-4 bps) bonds led to yield contraction at the short (-5 bps), mid (-1 bps) and long (-3 bps) segments of the curve, respectively.