STOCK MARKET TRANSACTIONS FELL BY 22% IN APRIL - NSE

The nations stock market saw total transactions by investors dip by 22.11 per cent to N212.23bn in April, latest report from the Nigerian Stock Exchange has shown. The bourse recorded N272.48bn transactions in March, compared to N212.05bn in February and N394.44bn in January. Foreign portfolio investors transactions on the NSE fell by 7.32 per cent to N122.53bn in April from N132.21bn in March.

There was a 7.79 per cent decrease in foreign inflows from N69.71bn in March 2018 to N64.28bn in April. Foreign outflows also reduced by 6.8 per cent from N62.50bn to N58.25bn within the same period, the NSE said. The foreign investors outperformed their domestic counterparts by 15.48 per cent in April, as total domestic transactions declined by 36.05 per cent to N89.70bn from N140.27bn in March.

In February, the bourse recorded N128.83bn domestic transactions, down from N228.05bn in January, the NSE data showed. The NSE said, The institutional composition of the domestic market reduced by 49.04 per cent from N91.27bn in March to N46.51bn in April.

The retail composition also decreased by 11.86 per cent from N49bn to N43.19bn within the same period.

There is higher participation by institutional investors over their retail counterparts. The bourse said foreign transactions consistently outperformed domestic transactions between 2011 and 2015. It, however, said domestic transactions marginally outperformed foreign transactions in 2016 and 2017, accounting for 52 per cent of the total transaction value in 2017.

Also, foreign transactions, which were N1.539tn in 2014, declined to N518bn in 2016, but increased significantly by 133 per cent to N1.208tn in 2017, thereby accounting for about 48 per cent of total transactions in 2017. Over an 11-year period, domestic transactions have decreased by 62.46 per cent from N3.556tn in 2007 to N1.335tn in 2017. However, there was a significant increase in 2017 by 111 per cent from N634bn recorded in 2016.

According to the data, the cumulative transactions from January to April increased by 114.22 per cent to N1.091tn from N509.38bn recorded in the same period of last year.

(Punch)