FIXED INCOME MARKET
Money Markets
Interbank system liquidity opened with a deficit balance of ₦92.97 billion, significantly lower than yesterday’s opening balance of ₦11.21 billion. Consequently, Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) closed higher at 13.83% compared to 13.75% reported at yesterday’s session while Overnight (ON) rate remained unchanged at 14.00%.
Treasury Bills
Post-NTB auction activity in the treasury bills secondary market remained muted with weak interest seen across the curve. Offers on Apr 2023 and Jun 2023 papers dropped to 5.60% and 5.90% levels respectively, while bids were mostly above 6.00%. Overall, average rate declined marginally by c.3bps to 3.85% at the close of the trading session.
Bonds
The FGN bonds market traded mixed sentiments, following yesterday’s release of May 2022 CPI at 17.71%. Most of the interest was skewed to 2026s, 2032s and 2042s, as investors positioned ahead of the monthly Bond auction scheduled to hold on Monday, June 20, 2022. Thus, average yield inched up by 6bps to 11.49%, driven by improved offers at the belly of the curve.
Eurobonds
In the Eurobond market, the buying momentum witnessed in the last 2 days fizzled out, following the latest 75bps rate hike by the US Feds. Risk assets were priced lower with previous gains all paring, especially across the Emerging Markets and African sovereign curves. The Bank of England (BoE) and Swiss National Bank (SNB) also joined the hike train today with 25bps and 50bps rate hikes respectively, to tame the rising inflation. Overall, average yield across NGN Sovereigns declined marginally by c.1bp to 11.42% at the close of the trading session.
Equities
The Nigerian equity market continued to trade on a bearish note, as the ASI shed by c.0.69% from the previous session to close at 52,411.09pts. Selloffs on bellwethers such as Zenith Bank (-0.30%) and GTCO (-0.15%) drove todays’ negative close while year-to-date return trimmed to +22.70%.
The NGX Industrial, Banking and Oil & Gas Indices all lost c.0.01%, 0.62% and 0.83% respectively, while the NGX Consumer goods Index gained c.0.01% from the previous day. Sterling Bank led the volume chart with c.63.66 million units while Zenith Bank led the value charts with c.₦ 382.57million worth of trades.
Foreign Exchange
FMDQ’s Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX) rate depreciated slightly by c. ₦0.50k to ₦420.50/US $1.00 from ₦420.00/US$1.00, recorded at the previous session.
Commodities
Oil prices erased early gains to head lower today, a day after a fall triggered by a U.S. interest rate hike, though tight supply limited losses. Brent Crude Oil price gained c.0.03% to settle at US$118.52pb as the WTI also gained c.0.54% from the previous session to settle at US$116.12pb as at report time. Spot Gold gained c.0.95% to close at US$1,836.80 per ounce as at report time.
