FIXED INCOME MARKET
Money Markets
Interbank system liquidity opened with a balance of ca ₦5.59 billion, lower than the previous day’s opening balance of ca ₦75.14 billion. Thus, the Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (ON) rates trended higher to settle at 11.00% and 11.25% from 7.50% and 8.00% respectively, the previous day.
Treasury Bills
The NTB secondary market traded on a bullish note following the drop in the stop rate of the 364-day paper at yesterday’s Primary Market Auction (PMA). The newly issued 1-year paper saw the most activity trading between 6.75% and 6.80%, ca 40-45bps lower than the PMA’s stop rate. Some demand was also seen on the March 2022 and April 2022 papers, however offer remained scarce. Overall, average rate dipped ca 11bps to 5.07%.
Bonds
The FGN bonds secondary was also relatively quiet today. However, some cherry-picking activity was witnessed on the 2050 maturity at 13.13%. Overall, average yield dipped ca 3bps day-on-day at 11.36%.
Eurobonds
The Eurobonds space witnessed some bullish sentiments today, with mild demand seen across the yield curve. Overall, the average yield lost ca 1bp day-on-day at 6.44%.
Equities
The domestic bourse sustained its positive performance as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NSE ASI) gained 0.19% day-on-day to close at 41,129.98pts, while year-to-date returns rose to 2.13%. This performance was largely supported by gains in First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc (+7.31%) and Nigerian Breweries Plc (+1.08%).
The NSE Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods indices gained ca 0.17% and 0.15% respectively, while the NSE Banking and Oil and Gas indices lost ca 0.86% and 0.01% day-on-day.
First Bank of Nigeria Holdings Plc led both the volume and value charts with ca 602.77 million units traded at ca ₦7.11 billion.
Foreign Exchange
FMDQ Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX) depreciated to ₦422.07/$1.00 from ₦415.10/$1.00.
Commodities
Global crude oil prices reversed the previous day’s losses as the American Petroleum Institute (API) reported a drop in U.S gasoline and distillate inventories by 4.6 million barrels (mb) and 2.7mb respectively, higher than market analysts’ expectation of a drop of 0.1 mb and 0.9 mb of gasoline and distillate inventories respectively. Thus, Brent Crude oil price gained ca 1.09% day-on-day to settle at US$84.09pb, while WTI also gained ca 1.12% to US$81.34pb, as at report time. Spot Gold gained ca 0.28% day-on-day to settle at US$1,799.80 per ounce as at report time.
