The demand for local stocks by foreign investors between July and August 2020, received a boost, as it increased by 12.69%, from N34.59 billion (about $89.0 million) recorded in July 2020 to N38.98 billion (about $100.81 million) as of August 2020.

Foreign inflow and outflow increased within the period under view, from N13.70 billion and N20.89 billion to N17.66 billion and N21.32 billion respectively, in the months of July and August 2020.

However, total domestic and foreign portfolio investment decreased by 8.49%, from N103.21 billion recorded to N94.45 billion.

This is according to the NSE polls on trading figures from market operators, on their domestic and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) flows.

Year-on-Year, the performance of August 2020 (N94.45 billion), when compared with the performance in August 2019 (N121.99billion), revealed that total transactions decreased by 22.58%. In August 2020, the total value of transactions executed by Domestic Investors outperformed transactions executed by Foreign Investors, as shown in the diagram below:

Both Retail and Institutional investors of the domestic market recorded a decline, however, the magnitude differs. While retail transactions decreased by 18.22%, from N32.54billion to N26.61billion in the period under review. The shares of institutional investors in the domestic market decreased by 20.01%, from N36.08billion in July 2020 to N28.86billion in August 2020.

In summary, the thirteen years performance of the domestic transactions decreased by 72.30%, from N3.556 trillion in 2007 to N985bn in 2019 whilst foreign transactions increased by 53.08% from N616bn to N943bn over the same period.

Key highlights

• Total domestic transactions completed year to date (YTD) is about N731.02 billion
• Total foreign transactions completed YTD is about N470.2 billion
• Foreign inflow increased by 28.91% between July and August 2020
• Foreign outflow also increased by 2.06% between July and August 2020