Nigerian bourse records eight consecutive losing streak on Thursday, down 0.23%

The Nigerian equities market sustained its losing streak for the eight consecutive trading session on Thursday as the benchmark index, that is All-Share Index, declining by 0.23 per cent to 30,029.15 points, following a DANGCEM-led selloff.

Thus, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date losses increased to 3.35 per cent and 4.46 per cent respectively.

On sectoral performance, the Industrial Goods (-0.55%) index was the sole loser following a selloff in DANGCEM (-1.08%). Conversely the Oil & Gas (+0.22%), Banking (+0.09%), Insurance (+0.07%) and Consumer Goods (+0.02%) indices all recorded gains following bargain hunting in OANDO (+1.33%), GUARANTY (+0.98%), MBENEFIT (+5.00%), and NB (+0.88%), respectively.

Market breadth was negative, with 14 losers and 15 gainers led by CILEASING (-9.87%) and GLAXOSMITH (+9.15%) shares, respectively. Total volume of trades increased by 3.9 per cent to 242.62 million units, valued at NGN5.97 billion and exchanged in 3,153 deals.

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

In the currency market, the USD/NGN depreciated by 0.01 per cent to NGN360.67 at the I&E FX window, but was flat at NGN360 at the parallel market. Total turnover in the IEW decreased by 49.5% to USD142.12 million, with trades consummated within the NGN310.00- NGN361.50/USD band.

In the money market & fixed income market, the overnight lending rate contracted by 379 bps to 5.71 per cent, as inflows from matured OMO bills (NGN125.77 billion) boosted system liquidity.

Activities in the treasury bills market were bullish, as average yield compressed by 8 bps to 12.41 per cent. Demand was spread across the short (-6 bps), mid (-12 bps) and long (-7 bps) segments, with respective yields on the 91DTM (-23 bps), 119DTM (-34 bps) and 336DTM (-36 bps) bills contracting.

At today’s primary auction, the CBN fully allotted NGN129.64 billion – NGN15.00 billion of the 91DTM, NGN30.00 billion of the 182DTM, and NGN84.64 billion of the 364DTM – worth of bills at respective stop rates of 10.00% (same as previous auction), 11.95% (same as previous auction) and 12.34% (previously 12.20%).

Trading in the bond market was mixed as average yield closed flat at 14.24%. Selloffs were spread across the mid (+10 bps) and long (+4 bps) segments, with respective yields on the MAR-2027 (+29 bps) and APR-2037(+6 bps) bonds expanding. Conversely, demand for FEB-2020 (-60 bps) led to yield contraction at the short (-10 bps) segment.