FIXED INCOME MARKETS
Money Markets
Opening system liquidity increased today to c.₦ 472.3 billion compared to yesterday’s c.₦ 280.1 billion. Nonetheless, the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) and the Overnight Rate (O/N) remained unchanged at 10.50% and at 10.81% respectively.
Treasury Bills
The treasury bills market sustained its bullish bias in today’s session, with buy interest concentrated across the mid-to-long dated papers. Moreso, the NTB primary market auction is slated for tomorrow, where c. ₦217 billion will be offered across the usual tenors.
Bonds
The FGN local bonds market traded sideways, with most of the activity seen on the short-to-medium-dated maturities, particularly on the 2024, 2025, 2027, 2028 and 2037 maturities. While the cherry-picking rekindled in today’s session, slight sell interests were noticed on the long end of the curve.
Eurobonds
The Eurobonds market posted a bearish bias, as the spillover impact of the job report and negative outlook on Nigeria’s debt by the S&P continued to impact the market sentiments. The same sell offs were noticed across the SSA region, except for Kenya, with some respite, on the back of revision of the 2022/2023 budget expenditure, and a downward revision of the budget deficit from the projected 6.2% of GDP to an estimated 5.7% of the total GDP. In addition, the markets also steered their attention to Fed Chair Powell’s comments later today on the possibilities of steeper rate hikes after last week Friday’s jobs numbers.
In Ghana, today was the deadline for the local debt exchange and local bondholders were offered new bonds with coupons between 8.35% and 15% compared with earlier offers of 5% and 9%.
Equities
The Nigerian domestic bourse reversed its opening bullish theme, as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NGX ASI) declined by c.0.13% day-on-day to close at 54,299.76 points while year-to-date return closed lower at c.5.95%. Selling activities on trailblazers like DANGCEM (-0.71%) GEREGU (-5.07) and FCMB (-7.82) drove the negative trend.
The NGX Banking, Industrial and Consumer Goods Indices all depreciated in value by c. 0.46%, 0.31% and 0.02% respectively, while the NGX Oil and Gas Index gained c. 0.54%. GEREGU led the values charts with c. 4.17 billion and FCMB led the volume charts with c.₦ 27.98 million worth of trades.
Foreign Exchange
FMDQ’s Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX) rate appreciated to ₦461.50/US$1.00 from ₦ 462.17/US$1.00 recorded at the close of the previous day.
Commodities
Oil prices rose for a second straight session on Tuesday, driven by optimism about recovering demand in China, and concerns over supply shortages following the shutdown of a major export terminal after an earthquake in Turkey. Brent Crude Oil price gained c.1.20% day-on-day to settle at US$81.96pb, while WTI gained c.0.99% day-on-day to settle at US$74.84pb as at the time of this report. Spot Gold grew by c.0.10% day-on-day to close at US$1,881.40 per ounce as of report time.
