FIXED INCOME MARKETS
Money Markets
System liquidity opened with a negative balance of -₦407.88 million today, compared with the opening balance of -₦430.03 billion recorded as at close of last week. Nevertheless, the Open Repo Rate (OPR) and Overnight Rate (O/N) stiffened by 400bps and 375bps to 14.63% and 15.25%, respectively.
Outlook: We expect the interbank rates to draw closer to its lower band levels, as money market players anticipate buoyant liquidity inflows later this week.
Treasury Bills
Ahead of tomorrow’s treasury bills auction, market traded bearish, with offers sighted across the mid and long-dated tenors. On our watch, selling interests was daunted mostly on 21 August 2023, 7 March 2024, and 11 April 2024. Average yield soared by 88bps to 6.61%.
Outlook: We expect activities to be staged around the treasury bills auction tomorrow, where the DMO will be offering ₦131.46 treasury bills.
FGN Bonds
Quite similarly, the local bonds market exhibited a bearish performance, but mostly at the early hours of trading. Towards the closing bell, some papers were cherry-picked at good levels. Average yield slipped by 3bps to settle at 13.88%, despite the offers that rattled across the 2028, 2032, 2037, 2049 and 2050 papers.
Outlook: We expect the market to gently adjust to a bullish posture tomorrow, as market exudes optimism from the inflows on the maturing 2023 paper.
Eurobonds
The Eurobonds market started the session slightly bearish. However, market flipped over to settle on a bullish note for the remaining part of the trading session, with buyside interests across several papers. The market repriced average yield lower by 19bps to 12.98%.
Outlook: We expect the market to stay mixed, as investors anticipates the final key economic data ahead of the Fed’s meeting.
Equities
The Nigerian equity market closed on a bullish note today, as the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (NGX ASI) gained c. 0.63% to closed at 51,681.01, while year-to-date return settled on a positive at c 0.84%. Buying interest in HONYFLOUR (9.91%) and TRANSCORP (9.80%) stirred the market to a positive closure in today’s session. The NGX Banking and Industrial Indices appreciated in value by 1.30% and 0.11%, respectively. At the other side of the divide, the NGX Consumer Goods, and Oil & Gas Indices depreciated by 0.37%, and 0.07%, respectively. ACCESSCORP led the volume charts with c.217.42 billion units and led the value charts with c. ₦ 2.31 billion.
Outlook: We expect the market to stay bullish in the interim.
Foreign Exchange
FMDQ’s Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX) rate depreciated to ₦463.44/US$1.00 from ₦463.25/US$1.00 recorded last week.
Outlook: We expect the exchange rate to revolve around the ₦463 level tomorrow.
Commodities
Oil prices declined today as investors gauged the strong holiday travel in China that could boost fuel demand against the prospect of rising interest rates. Brent oil prices depreciated by c. 2.45% to $80.70 per barrel in intraday trade, while WTI depreciated by c 2.30% day-on-day to settle at US$76.96pb as at print time. Similarly, Spot Gold depreciated by c. 0.01% day-on-day to close at US$1,999.40 per ounce as of report time.
Outlook: We expect the crude oil prices repost a bearish performance tomorrow.
