Foreign and Local Investors abandon Nigerian Stocks ….

LAGOS, Nigeria, Capital Markets in Africa — Total equity transactions at the Nigerian Stock Exchange  decreased by 23.93% from N110.56 billion recorded in December 2015 to N84.1 billion (about US$0.43 billion) in January 2016. In comparison to the same period in 2015, total transactions decreased by 55.67% from the N189.72 recorded in January 2015, the figure released by the bourse.

In addition, domestic investors conceded about 3.14% of trading to foreign investors as domestic transactions decreased from 53.55% in December 2015 to 48.43% in January 2016, resulting to N40.73 billion (about US$0.21 billion). Whereas, the Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) transactions increased from 46.45% to 51.57% over the same period. The FPI outflow includes sales transactions or liquidation of portfolio investments through the stock market, whilst the FPI inflow includes purchase transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (Equities only).

Furthermore, the monthly foreign outflows outpaced inflows which was consistent with the same period in 2015. However, there was a 23.17% decrease in foreign outflows from N34.31 billion in December 2015 to N26.36 billion in 2016. Also, foreign inflows decreased by 0.18% from N17.04 billion in December 2015 to N17.01 billion in January 2016.

Looking at the domestic investors, institutional investors transacted N21.85 billion (c. US$ 0.1 billion) which accounted for 53.64% of the domestic transactions whilst the retail composition accounted for 46% in the same period. In comparison to the December 2015, institutional investors transactions decreased by 46.42 % from N40.18 billion and domestic retail investor went down by 0.79 percent to settle at N18.88 billion.