By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Foreign investors repatriated N101.2 billion ($583.6 million) from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in October as they sold stocks valued at that amount after a drop in oil price and the value of the naira.
Analysis of transactions for the period by the NSE shows that the foreign investors accounted for 87.54 percent of the N1.251 trillion total foreign transactions as at October 2014 and pulled out N676.7 billion Year-to-Date (YTD); indicating 17.6 percent more than their investments in the review period.
Also, the NSE reported that foreign investors’ transactions at the nation’s bourse which recorded its highest flows for the year in September decreased to N153.28 billion (about $0.99 billion) in October 2014, down 32.38 percent from September 2014.
The offshore investors had in August increased the pace of outflow, selling off banking, consumer and oil/gas sectors as the price of Brent crude declined.
According to the NSE, total transactions decreased by 3.78 percent from N181.97 billion in January to N175.10 billion in October and foreign portfolio investors’ inflows accounted for 29.73 percent of total transactions while the outflows accounted for 57.81 percent of the total transactions in October 2014.
The data made available by the Nigerian bourse shows that in comparison to the same period in 2013, total foreign portfolio investments (FPI) increased by 86.18 percent, whilst the total domestic transactions decreased by 62.89 percent. ‘’However, the FPI outflows outpaced inflows by 94.4 percent, a sharp increase compared to the same period in 2013. Overall, there was a 24.07 percent increase in total transactions in comparison to the same period in 2013,’’ the NSE update said.
‘’Total FPI transactions of N616 billion which accounted for 14.8 percent of total transactions in 2007 consistently increased over the years to N1,042 billion representing 50.8 percent of the total in 2013 (An increase of 36 percent over the 6 year period),’’ the report affirmed.
