FeaturedMarket Update

COVID-19 Scare; NSE Announces 30-Day Remote Working Plan, Temporal Closure of Trading Platforms

Starting up the news week, equities trading on the floor of The Nigerian Stock Exchange rounded up in the bearish territory, as the lead performance index- NSEASI gave up 224Bpts of its trading points, thus, it rounded up at 21,700.98 from 22,1988.43. All observed market indices in this report closed below their respective opening points as shown in the index movement table. Week to Date, activities index gave up 224Bpts while the total lost points in the month of March is now 1,722Bpts. See the index movement table for details.

The leading economic fundamental remained the raging COVI-19, a strange disease that had taken the life of several thousand around the world since its discovery. Please note that cases of Convi-19 in Nigeria had reportedly risen to 40 with one death and two discharges. In line with this, the management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange announced that it will activate a 30-day remote working plan for its employees (excluding essential staff), effective Tuesday, March 24, 2020. And effective Wednesday, March 25, 2020, all its trading floors will be temporarily closed, although remote trading will continue and its staffs will be available through all the digital platforms to provide support. In another secular, it granted all listed companies a sixty (60) day grace period for the submission of their Audited Financial Statements for the year ended 31 December 2019, which were due to for release on Monday, 30 March 2020.

Value loss by the Market Capitalization of the listed equities during today’s trading activities was N259.234 billion, same as 224Bpts below the opening value. Meanwhile, trading activities for the day produced 09 ADVANCERS and 25 LAGERS. NSEASI Year to Date loss is now 1,915Bpts while the Market Capitalization Year to Date loss stood at N1.649 trillion same as 1,273Bpts below the year’s opening value.

Leading on the advancers’ log is Neimeth with 10.00% gain, as it rounded up the day at N0.44 from N0.40. May&Baker followed with 8.94% gain that closed its price at N1.95 from N1.79. Custodian, Flour Mills and Chemical & Allied Products completed the top 5 price percentage gainers’ with 8.65%, 7.77% and 7.69% respectively.

Five (5) listed equities led on the decliners’ log with 10.00% lost each. They are, Dangote Sugar, Nigerian Breweries, UBA, Wema Bank and Stanbi IBTC. See the top performance log for details.

As at the time this report was gathered, Brent Crude sells at 28.10$/bbl, this is 107Bpts above the previous close price.

The I&E FX Window opened at N380.55 traded as high as N382.00 before rounding up at N380.75, having transacted a total of $61.54 million through the day. Please note that, margin between the close and open value is 235Bpts up. We are of the opinion that the FX-Market will trade within same range tomorrow. See below table for Lagos BDC Fx-Rates.

In the money market, the Overnight (O/N) rate closed at 6.93%, same as 1.63% above the previous closing position. Meanwhile, Open Buy-Back (OBB) rate ended at 6.00% that is 1.20% above the previous close. We are of the opinion that the money market will maintain this range on the next business day. Safe Trade

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