Bargain hunters rescue equities from bears as index rises 0.6%
The local bourse retraced midweek’s loss, as bargain buying in DANGCEM (+3.6%) and NESTLE (+1.9%) spurred approximately a 0.6% gain in the benchmark index to 38,931.25 basis points.
Consequently, the Month-to-Date (MtD) and Year-to-Date (YtD) losses moderated to -2.2% and -3.3%, respectively.
The total volume traded declined by 24.9% to 368.22 million units, valued at N4.91 billion, and exchanged in 4,437 deals.
Trading record shows that UBA was the most traded stock by volume as it’s investors traded 74.84 million units, while GUARANTY was the most traded stock by value at N1.06 billion.
Analysing by sectors, the Industrial Goods (+1.7%), Consumer Goods (+0.4%), and Insurance (+0.2%) indices recorded gains while the Banking (-0.4%) index declined. The Oil & Gas index closed flat.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was positive (1.1x), as 23 tickers gained, relative to 21 losers.
MORISON (+9.7%) and CHAMPION (+8.9%) topped the gainers’ list, while CHIPLC (-10.0%) and ETERNA (-9.9%) recorded the largest losses of the day.
Currency
The naira appreciated by 0.2% to NGN411.13/USD at the I&E window but was flat at NGN484.00/USD in the parallel market.
Money Market & Fixed Income
The overnight lending rate expanded by 100bps to 12.5%, in the absence of any significant inflows to the system.
The NTB secondary market was mixed, as market participants shifted their focus to the bi-weekly NTB PMA today. Thus, the average yield was flat at 2.1%. Elsewhere, the OMO secondary market’s average yield expanded by 18bps to 6.8%.
The Treasury bonds secondary market remained bullish, as the average yield in the space declined by 22bps to 9.0%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield fell at the short (-61bps), mid (-12bps) and long (-1bp) segments due to demand for the JAN-2026 (-142bps), MAR-2027 (-65bps) and MAR-2050 (-4bps), respectively.
