FIXED INCOME MARKETS
Money Market
System liquidity dropped by c.₦36.63 billion to open at ₦580.98 billion compared to yesterday’s opening balance. Nonetheless, the Open Repo Rate (OPR) and the Overnight Rate (O/N) stayed at 0.94% and 1.50%, respectively.
Outlook: We expect the interbank rates to close higher tomorrow, due to the bond action settlement depleting market liquidity. However, coupon from the FGN 2037 paper should provide some support.
Treasury Bills
Overall, the treasury bills market expressed a gloomy performance today, with weak bids and offers. Although, the slight activity was stirred towards the one-year paper. Average yield remained 5.87%.
Outlook: We expect market sentiment to remain mixed in the interim.
FGN Bonds
Yield on the FGN Bond papers pushed higher today in response to yesterday’s FGN bond auction, despite some buying interests on selected papers. Thus, market closed bearish with 10bps uptick in average yield to settle at 14.47%.
Outlook: We expect market to continue to trade with less aggression.
Eurobonds
In Ghana’s Eurobonds Market, selloffs were witnessed across the spectrum, as players reacted to the information from yesterday’s Investor-focused presentation. The Finance minister, Ken Ofori Atta, mentioned that a 30-40% nominal haircut on Eurobond debt, capping coupons at 5%, and limiting maturities to 20 years, has been proposed to external bond holders, though a final position is yet to be agreed. Other SSA papers, including Nigeria and Angola, witnessed a bearish bias as well, partly tied to the strong US economic data released today, such as US retail sales (and retail minus auto sales), and industrial production. In contrast, the Egypt dollar market posted a bullish performance. Specifically, Nigeria’s curve closed on a negative note, as average yield increased by 17bps to 12.13%
Outlook: We expect market to remain relatively mixed.
Equities
The Nigerian’s equity market sustained its sideways pattern witnessed over the last couple of days, albeit it recouped some of yesterday’s losses, as the ASI gained 0.43% to settle at 67,326.12 points, while year-to-date return settled at c.31.37%. The buying interests on FIDELITYBK (+4.97%) and ACCESSCORP (+4.95%) impacted the bullish performance.
The NGX Banking, Industrial and Oil & Gas Indices appreciated by 2.75%, 0.05%, and 0.03%, respectively. In contrast, the Consumer Goods Index lost 0.01%. ETRANZACT led the volume charts with 44.07 million units while UBA led the value charts with ₦796.34 million.
Outlook: We expect a mixed bias to persist.
Foreign Exchange
FMDQ’s Investors and Exporters (I&E) exchange rate depreciated by a whopping 10.89% to $/₦848.12 from $/₦764.86 recorded yesterday.
Outlook: We expect rates volatility to persist.
Commodities
Oil was mixed today, after yesterday’s decline and ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East which is likely to involve balancing support for Israel with containing a regional escalation of its war with Hamas. Brent crude oil prices gained 0.21% to $89.84 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate (WTI) depreciated by 0.05% to US$86.64 per barrel as of writing time. Similarly, Spot Gold appreciated 0.19% to US$1,938.19 per ounce at the time of this report.
Outlook: We expect oil prices to continue to swing sideways.
