By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The current Capital Market recovery is driven by foreign investors, Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Friday made this affirmation at an interactive forum with the media and capital market analysts.

“I want to point out one thing, the recovery you are seeing in the market today is driven by foreign investors, let’s not make any mistake about that,” he said.

Onyema said this did not just happen because foreign investors have experience in market cycles, “ they know  it goes up and down, we had to go to them to explain what we are doing in order to bring confidence back from their side,” he said.

He affirmed that apart from talking with foreign investors in bringing back confidence to the Nigerian capital market (NCM), local investors were also engaged.

According to Onyema, the NSE have had meetings with the pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), insurance companies, “last year alone, we had over 200 investors’ education programmes,” the NSE CEO affirmed.

At the end of year 2012, Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), had announced that foreign investors contributed about 70 percent (70%) of daily trading value of equities at the Nigerian Bourse, while retail investors contributed about 30%.

The NSE had in March 2013 reported a decline in Flow of Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPIs) in equity trading for the period 2007 to February 2013.

According to the Nigeria’s Exchange, on a monthly basis, it polls trading figures from major custodians and market operators on their foreign portfolio clients to show the breakdown of the portfolio inflow and outflow between 2007 and February 2013.

To record the decline, the Report states that the total Flow of FPIs in equity trading on the Nigerian stock market for the 2007 period was N615.63 billion compared to N140.8 billion recorded in February 2013; showing a decline of -77.1 percent (-77.1%) in the review period.

In the same vein, Onyema at a World Press Briefing “An Appraisal of Capital Market Performance 2012” said local investors contributed 44.3% of total market activities on its Bourse.

“Local investors started coming back to the equities market, accounting for 44.3% of total market Activity as at November 2012, up 38.38% from 2011” he said.

The NSE’s All-Share-Index (ASI) hit its recent high of 40,000bps which capital market analysts’ tip as the commencement of full recovery in the Nigerian capital market.