Amid the current macroeconomic challenges, the total transactions carried out by domestic investors on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) rose to N659.26 billion in the first four months of 2023.
This is, according to the recently released data on domestic and foreign portfolio participation in Nigeria’s equity trading for the month of April. The prolonged FX scarcity, inflation, among others have been taking their toll on the Nigerian economy and the capital market which is the barometer of the economy has seen mixed sentiments in transactions in the month under review.
For instance, domestic transactions decreased by 45.30 per cent from N3.556 trillion in 2007 to N1.945 trillion in 2022 whilst foreign transactions also decreased by 38.47 per cent from N616 billion to N379 billion over the same period.
Furthermore, total domestic transactions accounted for about 84 per cent of the total transactions carried out in 2022, whilst foreign transactions accounted for about 16 per cent of the total transactions in the same period. However, the transaction data for 2023 shows that total domestic transactions stood at N659.26 billion, while total foreign transactions currently stands at N62.18 billion.
Analysing the report, total transactions at the nation’s bourse at the end of April increased by 30.77 per cent from N146.22 billion (about $317.09 million) recorded in March 2023 to N191.21 billion (about $413.25million) recorded in April 2023. However, the performance of the current month when compared to the performance in April 2022 (N205.88 billion) revealed that total transactions decreased by 7.13 per cent.
In contrast, total foreign transactions decreased by 7.83 per cent from N9.19 billion (about $19.94 million) to N8.47 billion (about $18.31 million) between March 2023 and April 2023.
The report also revealed that the total value of transactions executed by domestic investors outperformed transactions executed by foreign investors by 92 per cent. Domestic inflows and outflows recorded in the month under review stood at N91.91 billion and N90.83 billion respectively while foreign inflows and outflows stood at N3.67 billion and N4.80 billion.
A comparison of domestic transactions in the current and prior month (March 2023) revealed that retail transactions increased by 40.43 per cent from N52.83 billion in March to N74.19 billion in April 2023.
Similarly, the institutional composition of the domestic market increased significantly by 28.92 per cent from N84.20 billion in March 2023 to N108.55 billion in April 2023.
