Investors’ participation in the nation’s stock market has dropped by 29.5 per cent year-on-year, data from the Nigerian Stock Exchange, has shown.
The NSE in its monthly market report, said the total transactions executed on the trading floor dropped to N1.32tn in January to August from N1.88tn in the corresponding period of 2018.
Foreign transactions dropped from N906.86bn in 2018 to N594.46bn as domestic transactions also dropped from N970.31bn to N728.51bn.
The NSE said on a month-on-month basis, total transactions increased by 7.51 per cent from N113.47bn (about $370.4m) in July to N121.99bn (about $398m) in August.
The performance of the current month, when compared to the performance in the same period of the prior year, revealed that total transactions decreased by 8.85 per cent in August 2019.
The total value of transactions executed by foreign investors outperformed transactions executed by domestic investors by four per cent.
A further analysis of the total transactions executed between August and July revealed that total domestic transactions increased by 5.39 per cent from N55.69bn in July to N58.69bn in August.
Similarly, total foreign transactions also increased by 10.59 per cent from N57.78bn (about $188.6m) to N63.90bn (about $208.4m) between July and August.
The value of domestic transactions executed by institutional investors outperformed retail investors by eight per cent.
A comparison of domestic transactions in August and July revealed that retail transactions decreased by 5.97 per cent from N25.44bn in July to N23.92bn in August.
However, the institutional composition of the domestic market increased by 12.95 per cent from N30.25bn in July 2019 to N34.17bn in August 2019.
The total withdrawals of Foreign Portfolio Investors stood at N316.19bn at the end of August, compared with the N469.71bn recorded in the corresponding period of 2018.
FPIs withdrew N39.04bn in January, N55.01bn in February, N30.20bn in March and N41.78bn in April.
In May, N39.35bn was withdrawn, which increased to N52.44bn in June and dropped to N29.40bn in July.
