The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), on Friday released analysis of transactions for the month of April indicating the money flow to the market within the period, including among others, the continued foreign investor dominance that became even more pronounced.
While foreign investors outperformed their domestic peers by as much as 15.48% in the period under review, total domestic transactions dropped by 36.05% at N89.7bn, from N140.27bn in March.
This was despite the 7.32% drop in foreign transactions from N132.21bn to N122.53bn.
According to the NSE’s Domestic & Foreign Portfolio Investment Participation In Equity Trading for the month of April, foreign investors have consistently dominated transactions since 2011, except in 2016 and 2017. Last year, for example, domestic investors pooled 52% of total transactions; as foreign investors accounted for N1.208tr or 48% of total, up by 133% from N518bn in 2016. Foreign transactions amounted to N1.539tr in 2014.
Also, in April, foreign flows suffered a 7.79% decline to N64.28bn in April from N69.71bn, just as outflows fell to N58.25bn from N62.5bn, representing a 6.8% slide.
Institutional composition of the domestic market for the period under review showed that institutional investors continued to drive transaction, despite the 49.04% fall from N91.27bn in March to N46.51bn in April; while retail composition slipped 11.86% to N43.19bn from N49bn.
This left total transactions on the NSE for the period at NN212.23bn (about $0.7bn) in April declined by 22.11% from N272.48bn; bringing cumulative transactions between January and April to N1.091tr, up by 114.22% from N509.38bn in the corresponding period of 2017.
Total transaction value for the month of January remains the year-to-date peak at N394.44bn; followed by the N272.48bn in March; while the April figure is marginally higher than the N212.05bn recorded in Febuary.
Over an 11-year period, the NSE data noted, domestic transaction suffered a 62.46% slump to N1.335tr in 2017 from N3.556tr in 2007; despite the significant 111% spike in 2017 from N634bn.