The Nigerian Stock Exchange said both foreign and domestic investors in the nation’s capital market pulled out a total of N61.67billion in January.
The NSE said foreign and domestic investors withdrew N39.04billion and N22.63billion respectively from the market in the month while a total of N60.42billion was injected into the market.
Outflow includes sales transactions or liquidation of portfolio investments through the stock market, while inflow includes purchase transactions on the NSE (equities only), according to the data.
The concerns over the general elections and rising interest rate in the United States and some other developed economies had resulted in the exit of foreign investors from the NSE in recent months.
The NSE’s latest domestic and foreign portfolio investment report, which was released over the weekend, showed that total transactions at the nation’s bourse reduced by three per cent to N122.08billion (about $398.8million) in January from N125.86billion in December 2018.
According to the report, the market performance in January, when compared to its performance in the same period in 2018 revealed that total transactions reduced by 69.05 per cent.
The Exchange said, “In January 2019, the total value of transactions executed by foreign investors outperformed those executed by domestic investors by 10 per cent.
“A further analysis of the transactions executed in the current and prior month (December 2018) revealed that total foreign transactions increased by 11.27 per cent from N60.08billion in December 2018 to N66.85billion in January 2019.”
The foreign outflows also increased by 5.20 per cent from N37.11billion in December to N39.04billion in January while foreign inflows rose by 21.07 per cent from N22.97billion to N27.81billion.
It said the value of the total transactions executed in the domestic market by retail investors’ outperformed institutional investors by eight
per cent.
A comparison of the current and prior month (December 2018) transactions revealed that the total retail transactions increased by 6.27 per cent from N27.91billion in December 2018 to N29.66billion in January 2019.
The institutional composition of the domestic market reduced significantly by 32.45 per cent from N37.87billion in December 2018 to N25.58billion in January 2019. This indicates higher participation by retail investors’ over their institutional counterparts in January
2019.
The Chief Executive Officer, NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema, at the 2018 Market Recap and Outlook for 2019 in January, noted that the rise in foreign outflows “highlights foreign participation due to a shift to higher-yielding assets with lower risks in developed countries.
