Author: Marketforces Africa

Naira Hovers at N1436/$ as FX Reserves Hit $43.324 Billion The Nigerian local currency, the naira, saw a little change versus the US dollar at the official foreign exchange market window on Friday, hovering at N1436 amidst growing external reserves. The spot FX rate traded on a calm note at the Nigeria foreign exchange market, an update released by the Central Bank shows, reflecting the absence of demand pressures. FX rate hit an intraday high of N1436, a sharp improvement compared with a similar position of N1441 in the previous day. During the trading session, some international payments were conducted…

Nigerian Stocks Bottom Out in All-Week Losing Streaks Nigerian stocks bottom out over 5-day losing streaks on the equities trading platform. Selling pressures persisted throughout the week, reflecting negative investors’ sentiment. The market’s temperature turned too cold after the top big banks’ unimpressive performance – financial and oil stocks were casualties of profit-taking activities in the Nigerian Exchange. On Friday, the selling rally plunged key performance indicators downward by 33 basis points, and the year-to-date return moderated sharply. The local market posted a week-on-week loss of 2.99%, while the market index, or All Share Index, fell by 501.74 basis points…

Bitcoin Crashes Below $100k Briefly as Sell Pressures Persist Reflecting sustained negative sentiment, Bitcoin crashed below $100k briefly in the latest sell pressures that dragged the world’s largest digital asset market capitalisation below $2 trillion. BTCUSD hit a record high of $126,272 in early October. By month’s end, it had slipped 4%, closing the month in negative territory. Details from CoinMarketcap.com showed that over the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has lost about 3% of its market value as trading volume reached $80.652 billion. A review of BTCUSD trading data showed price has declined by 8.90% in the last seven trading…

Foreign Investors Sell Nigeria’s Eurobonds, Ramp Up New Issues The Nigerian Eurobond market weakened considerably, with yields expanding 9 basis points bps to 7.92%, reflecting heightened risk aversion and capital flight in the offshore segment, investment firm Cowry Asset said in a note. Foreign investors, however, rotated their portfolios, ramping up new issuance after significant rejection at the recently concluded external capital raise by Nigeria’s Debt Management Office. The African Eurobond market traded mixed with a bearish tilt, as unmet demand from the oversubscribed external offer spurred investors to seek higher yields on new issues. Nigeria sold the 10- year…

Nigerian Big Banks Trade Cheaper after Q3 Earnings Miss Nigerian big banks are trading cheaper following an unimpressive earnings performance in the third quarter of the financial year. All the banks except United Bank for Africa posted year-on-year growth. Profitability reduced basically as a result of asset quality challenges that triggered higher impairment charges on expected credit losses and a rising cost profile. Net interest margin thinned out and analysts anticipate that pressures on interest earnings asset will persist, and be more visible in the coming quarters at the Central Bank begin to cut rate successively. With requirement that banks…

Excess Liquidity in Financial System Hits N5trn, Rates Swing The short-term benchmark interest rates swung as excess liquidity in the financial system increased to about N5 trillion on Thursday. The absence of significant open market operations action by the Central Bank kept money market flooded, and rates movements have been in check with intermittent adjustments. With the liquidity surplus, local deposit money banks continue to play hard depositing excess cash at Standing Deposit Facility, earnings rate below equivalent borrowing from the CBN. In the absence of CBN’s action, market analysts project liquidity surplus to extend to next week with average…

Fidelity Bank: Analysts See 84% Upside on New Target Price Equities analysts upgraded Fidelity Bank Plc’s 12 months target price to N35.01, reflecting positive expectations of the lender’s future earnings performance.  In its stock recommendation this week, equities analysts at Afrinvest Securities Limited significantly increased their target price expectation on Fidelity Bank Plc from N18.30. Stock analysts also keep the bank’s share in buy bucket at the current market price of N19 since last week. Afrinvest Securities Limited new target price signals 84.3% upside potential to Fidelity Bank current valuation on Nigerian Exchange. A details look into the investment firm…

CBN Offers 21.84% Interest Rate for 84-Day OMO Bills The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) offered foreign portfolio investors and local deposit money bank participants a 21.84% spot rate on the 84-day OMO bills auction on Tuesday. The authority floated an OMO bills auction to counter excess liquidity in the money market. The financial system liquidity expanded above N4.6 trillion; this improvement was mainly driven by an inflow of ₦1.4 trillion from expired OMO bills. The development prompted the CBN to conduct an open market operation where N600.0 billion OMO bills were offered across two maturities, namely the 56-day and…

Equities Investors Lose N246bn as Oil, Banking Stocks Plunge Equities investors lost about N246 billion as oil stocks retreated due to profit-taking actions of the sell-side traders in the local bourse. Oil index led the losers chart, followed by insurance and banking indices in the midst of the third quarter earnings release. The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) index declined by 25 basis points, and year-to-date gains moderated to 49.37% at the beginning of the week. NGX market capitalisation shrank by ₦245.88 billion to ₦97.58 trillion on the back of negative sentiment that resulted in 38 declining stocks, 19 gainers, producing a…

Profit-Takings Wipe Off N91bn from Nigerian Stock Market Bearish sentiments persisted on the Nigerian Exchange on Tuesday, causing investors to lose about N91 billion in market value. Selloffs in McNicholas, Lasaco Assurance, Livestock Feeds, John Holt, Ikeja Hotel and 31 other declining stocks dragged the market into negative territory. The market capitalisation of listed equities, which opened at N98.698 trillion, shed N91 billion or 0.09 per cent to close at N98.607 trillion. Similarly, the All-Share Index fell by 0.09 per cent or 132.95 points to close at 155,363.20, compared with 155,496.15 posted on Monday. Market breadth remained negative with 36…