The Week Ahead

Edo and Ondo States to restrict unvaccinated individuals from public areas in the week ahead

Last month, the Edo state government reported that the rising death toll in its 3rd wave of covid 19 rose to 11 people as of 30th August.

In light of this fact, Edo and Ondo states have thus announced plans to ban unvaccinated people from visiting public spaces especially banks. Governor Obaseki of Edo state said on Wednesday that anyone without proof of vaccination will not be granted access to crowded facilities.

Ondo state is towing the same line stating that only vaccinated residents would be allowed to enter churches, mosques, hospitals, and government offices after a 2 weeks grace period.

“We want to reiterate that our directive on vaccination stands. Anyone without this proof will not be granted access to crowded facilities,” Obaseki said.

“To the best of our knowledge, the order is, at best, speculative and preemptive, as the scheduled date for the commencement of enforcement of the directive is the second week of September,” he added.

The governor urged that those planning social, religious, political or business events after the second week of September should ensure that both themselves and their guests are not only vaccinated but possess vaccination cards as proof.

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Oil price outlook

Oil prices reversed previous gains on Monday, pulling back from more than three-week highs reached earlier in the session, as a powerful hurricane slammed into the U.S. Gulf coast, forcing shutdowns and evacuations of hundreds of offshore oil platforms.

A survey by Reuters shows that OPEC+ pumped more crude oil in August, the highest volume since April 2020, after the OPEC+ alliance agreed to ease the production cuts by 400,000 bpd every month beginning in August. However, outages in Nigeria and Libya limited OPEC’s supply to the market in August.

According to the US Department of Energy estimates, a total of 2.3 million bpd of refining capacity, or 13% of U.S. capacity, was shut in Louisiana due to Hurricane Ida while about 94% of oil and natural gas production remained suspended in the U.S. side of the Gulf of Mexico. Analysts believe power outages are likely to slow the reopening of the processing plants.

On Wednesday, OPEC+ agreed to continue a policy of phasing out record production reductions by adding 400,000 bpd each month to the market. The commission revised its 2022 oil demand growth forecast to 4.2 million bpd, up from a previous 3.28 million bpd.

Oil prices were mixed on Friday after a strong rise in the previous session on a weaker dollar and a fall in U.S. crude stocks and were set for modest weekly gains ahead of a highly anticipated U.S. monthly jobs report. Both Brent and WTI benchmark oil contracts were largely steady for the week.

In the coming week, oil prices are expected to moderate further as OPEC maintains its gradual easing of oil amidst few cases of delta variant and prolong outages of power and activities in the US Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana.

NBS calendar for the week ahead

The NBS release calendar for the coming week indicates the following:

• Monday 6^th September 2021: Nigerian Gross Domestic Product Report (Expenditure and Income Approach) 2020
• Thursday 9^th September 2021: Foreign Trade in Goods (Q2 2021)

Currency market

The Naira continued its fall against major currencies last week, both at the BDC market and official market which is majorly attributed to the scarcity of FX.

At the I & E FX window, the domestic currency appreciated slightly by -0.12% on a week-on-week (W-o-W) basis to N411.50/US$ at the close of trading on Friday.

At the BDC market, it closed at US$/N528 depreciating by -1.54% against the US dollar, against the British pound it also fell by -0.98% to close at £1/N720, and against the Euro it fell by -2.15% to close at €1/N619.

The Naira closed the week at $/N411.50 at the I&E FX window, at the NAFEX (spot market) it closed at $/N411.36.

More of the same is expected in the week ahead as the Naira is anticipated to continue to hover around N406/$1-N412/$1 threshold in the NAFEX window.

Money market

For most of the trading session last week, money market rates were in single digit, this was supported by robust system liquidity, the liquidity in the system was driven by multiple inflows such as the N57 billion OMO repayment, SLF inflow of N18.65 billion.

At the close of the session on Friday, funding rates increased. Open Buyback (OBB) closed at 13.00% while Overnight (O/N) rates closed at 13.50% indicating a W-o-W rise of +56.06% for OBB and +58.82% for O/N rates.

Funding rates are expected to trade in double digits trend in the coming week in the absence of any inflow.

Treasury bills market

The bills market was mixed last week, with average benchmark yields for Treasury bills declining while OMO bills inched up at the close of trading last week.

At the close of the market last week, average benchmark yields for T-bills dipped by -6.87% to 4.61%, OMO bills were up by +1.32% W-o-W to close at 6.12%.

Activity next week is expected to be dictated by the market liquidity situation.

FGN BOND and EUROBOND market outlook

The FGN bond market last week was also mixed, with buying interest seen at the short and long-dated instruments, while holders of the mid-tenor notes went short.

The overall average benchmark yields closed at 8.31% for the week which fell slightly by  W-o-W by -0.84%.

The Eurobond market saw a less aggressive bullish bias on Friday, with buying concentrated at the mid to long end of the curve.  Average benchmark yields fell by 2bps to 5.68% at the close of trading.

However, market sentiment is expected to remain soft as inflation concerns continue to linger.

Nigerian capital market

The Nigerian bourse closed the week on a negative note as performance was bearish. The NGXASI closed the week with a decline of -0.57%. The Nigerian Stock Exchange lost N117.04bn, year-to-date return moderated to -2.51%, while the market capitalization settled at N20.46 trillion. 

The volume and value of stocks traded on the exchange last week dipped by -22.57% and -6.84% respectively.

Sectoral performance across sectors tracked was broadly negative last week as the NGX Insurance was the highest gainer for the week with +0.79% while NGX Oil and Gas was the highest loser with -2.96%. NGX Consumer Goods, NGX-IND, NGX Banking, closed negative with -1.34%, -0.89% and -0.58% respectively.

Market breadth for the week closed negative with 26 gainers led by TRANSCORP and SKYAVN as against 36 losers led by OANDO and MBENEFIT