Capital Flight: Investors Withdraw N124.25bn From Stock Market in Q1

• Capital Flight: Investors Withdraw N124.25bn From Stock Market in Q1

The Nigerian Stock Exchange has said foreign portfolio investors withdrew a total of N124.25 billion from the stock market in the first quarter of the year.

The report obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange on Thursday showed capital flight dropped by 28.62 percent when compared to the same quarter of 2018.

A further breakdown of the report revealed foreign portfolio investors withdrew N39.04 billion in January, N55.01 billion in February when investors were uncertain of the general elections and N30.20 billion in March.

Foreign inflow into the economy dipped to N97.63 billion in Q1 2019, down from N206.25 billion filed in Q1 2018.

Also, investors activity on the floor of the stock market drop in the period under review, the total transactions carried out during the quarter declined by 52.19 percent year-on-year to N420.26 billion, down from N878.97 billion achieved in the corresponding period in 2018.

Investors are yet to key into President Buhari’s policy following the success of the general elections as most still believe the administration will only continue first-term policy with zero changes.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange lost N713 billion in April with the market capitalisation declining from N11.672 trillion to N10.959 billion on the last trading day.

The lack of clarity regarding the economic path of the nation is hurting investors confidence in the Nigerian Stock Exchange market and other sector of the economy.