The Nigerian domestic equities market opened the week on a bearish note, as renewed investor anxiety stemming from the U.S. government’s recent 14.0% tariff imposition dampened market sentiment.
Sell pressures on banking stocks such as FIDELITYBANK, ACCESSCORP, UBA, FIRSTHOLDCO, GTCO ZENITHBANK, and oil stocks like OANDO, ARADEL dragged the All-Share Index down by 1.23% to 104,216.87 points from 105,511.89 points on Friday.
Consequently, investors lost N658 billion as the market capitalisation dropped to N65.49 trillion while the year-to-date returns settled 1.25%.
Trade analysis shows that the total transaction volume increased by 27.5% to 444.11 million units, valued at N11.15 billion, and exchanged in 15,690 deals. FCMB emerged as the most traded stock by volume as 65.50 million units were exchanged, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value at N2.33 billion.
Sectoral performance was broadly negative as the Banking (-7.6%), Insurance (-7.6%), Consumer Goods (-0.8%) and Oil & Gas (-0.7%) indices declined. The Industrial Goods index remained unchanged.
As measured by market breadth, market sentiment was negative (0.2x), as 49 tickers lost relative to 9 gainers. OANDO (-10.0%) and NSLTECH (-10.0%) posted the most significant losses of the day, while VFDGROUP (+10.0%) and TOTAL (+9.6%) led the gainers.
MONEY MARKET & FIXED INCOME
The overnight lending rate expanded by 9bps to 27.0% in the absence of any significant funding pressure on the system.
The Treasury bills secondary market traded with bearish sentiments, as the average yield expanded by 4bps to 19.9%. Across the curve, the average yield declined at the short (-3bps) and mid (-3bps) segments, driven by demand for the 80 DTM (-3bps) and 171DTM (-3bps) bills, respectively, but expanded at the long (+11bps) end driven by profit-taking activities on the 318DTM (+155bps) bill. Similarly, the average yield contracted by 5bps to 24.3% in the OMO segment.
Proceedings in the FGN bond secondary market were quiet, as the average yield remained unchanged at 18.5%. Across the benchmark curve, the average yield expanded slightly at the short (+1bp) end, driven by sell pressures on the APR-2029 (+3bps) bond, but closed flat at the mid and long segments.
