Foreign Investors Continue to Dump Nigerian Shares

• Foreign Investors Continue to Dump Nigerian Shares

Capital flight continued to rock the Nigerian Stock Exchange market as foreign investors dumped more Nigerian shares in April.

The data obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange showed N41 billion was withdrawn in April by foreign investors, bringing the total capital flight in the first four months of the year to N166.03 billion.

Total transactions increased from N110.10 billion in March to N148.9 billion, according to the NSE’s Domestic and Foreign Portfolio Investment Report for April.

The report indicated that the total value of transactions executed by foreign investors during the month outperformed domestic investors by four percent.

“Foreign portfolio investment outflow includes sales transactions or liquidation of portfolio investments through the stock market, while the FPI inflow includes purchase transactions on the NSE (equities only),” the NSE said.

Total foreign transactions rose by 37.13 percent to N76.92 billion in April, up from N56.09 billion recorded in March.

Breaking down the number, the total foreign outflows surged by 38.34 percent in April to N41.72 billion from N30.20 billion in March, while foreign inflows grew by 35.76 percent to N35.15 billion in the same month.

The report also revealed that the value of the domestic transactions executed by institutional investors outperformed retail investors by 18 percent in April.

It said, “Retail transactions increased marginally by 6.6 percent from N27.44bn in March 2019 to N29.26bn in April 2019. However, the institutional composition of the domestic market increased more significantly by 60.75 percent from N26.58bn in March 2019 to N42.73bn in April 2019.

“Foreign transactions, which stood at N1.539tn in 2014, declined to N1.219tn in 2018. Over the 12-year period, domestic transactions decreased by 66.68 percent from N3.556tn in 2007 to N1.185tn in 2018.”