By Mike Abbah
The naira appreciated by 0.8% to N1,580.46/$ in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday, setting the pace to reverse the negative trend that closed the market on Friday. However, turnover dropped to $197.37 from $245.97 at the last trading on Friday, representing a 24.6% dip.
The overnight lending rate contracted by 62bps to 31.1% in the absence of any significant inflow to the system.
The Nigeria Treasury Bill (NTB) secondary market traded with bullish sentiments, as the average yield dipped by 2bps to 20.0%. Across the curve, the average yield increased at the short (+6bps) and long (+10bps) ends, driven by profit-taking on the 73DTM (+11bps) and 290DTM (+88bps) bills, respectively.
Meanwhile, the average yield declined by 31bps in the mid segment due to strong demand for the 94DTM (-52bps) bill. Similarly, the average yield declined by 1bp to 23.3% in the OMO segment.
The FGN bond secondary market closed on a bearish note, as the average yield expanded by 2bps to 18.4%.
Across the benchmark curve, the average yield increased at the short (+2bps) and mid (+6bps) segments as players sold off the MAR-2025 (+4bps) and JUN-2033 (+30bps) bonds, respectively, while it remained unchanged at the long end.
The domestic equities market ended the day lower as investors took profits off JBERGER, resulting in a 0.2% decline in the All-share index to 96,206.18 points. Accordingly, the Month-to-Date and Year-to-Date returns printed -0.4% and +28.7%, respectively.
The total volume of trades increased by 94.5% to 763.49 million units, valued at N14.42 billion, and exchanged in 10,223 deals. JAIZBANK was the most traded stock by volume at 247.04 million units, while ZENITHBANK was the most traded stock by value at N6.42 billion.
Performance across sectors was mixed as the Consumer Goods (-0.4%) index declined, while the Insurance (+2.5%), Oil and gas (+1.1%), and Banking (+0.7%) indices advanced. The Industrial Goods index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.6x), as 32 tickers gained while 20 tickers lost. TANTALIZER (+10.0%) and ETERNA (+10.0%) topped the gainers’ list, while JBERGER (-10.0%) and TRANSPOWER (-10.0%) recorded the highest losses of the day.
