Stories by Chinenye Anuforo

Trading activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) continued on a downward trend yesterday as the All Share Index shed 0.83 percent to close at 25,587.09 points, while the capitalisation also dropped N74.3 billion to close at N8.818 trillion brining the Year-to Date return to 4.82 percent.

The index performance showed most indices trended southwards, except the Consumer Goods Index that advanced slightly by 0.02 percent following appreciation recorded in Dangote Sugar and Nigerian Breweries.

However, a sharp decline in blue chip companies such as Total, Dangote Cement, Guinness, PZ, GSK was the reason for the drop.

Investors’ optimism measured by market breadth remained weak with eight equities on the gainers’ chart against 25 on the losers’ chart

UAC-Prop led the days decliners with a decline of  9.27 percent to close at N2.25, Air Service was next with a depreciation of 9.13 percent to close at N2.39, Glaxosmithkline lost 5 percent to close at N14.25.

The day’s gainers were topped by United Capital with 4.79 percent growth to close at N3.72, Livestock Feeds followed with a growth of 4 percent to close at 78 kobo per share while AIICO Insurance added 1.72 percent to close at 59 kobo.

The most actively traded stock for the day was FBN Holdings that traded 25.3 million units of shares, worth N88.2 million, Standard Trust Alliance (STACO) was next with 20 million units valued at N10 million and Fidelity Bank was third with 13.6 million units of shares valued at N12.1 million.


Foreign transactions on NSE decline to N517.6bn

Data obtained from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has shown that total foreign transactions decreased by 49.51 per cent from N1.025 billion recorded at the end of 2015 to N517.55 billion at the end of 2016.

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Further analysis of the data also show that domestic transactions decreased by 28.02 per cent from N880.56 billion in 2015 to N633.82 in 2016.

However, total transactions at the nation’s bourse increased by 48.91 per cent from N64.39 billion recorded in November 2016 to N95.88 billion (about $0.31 billion) in December 2016.

Total transactions from January to December 2016 decreased significantly by 39.58 per cent from N1.9 billion recorded within the same period in 2015 to N1.2 billion at the end of 2016.

Foreign transactions have consistently outperformed domestic transactions since 2011. Last year, domestic transactions slightly out-performed foreign transactions accounting for 55 per cent of the total transactions in the year.

Also, foreign transactions have further declined by 66.34 per cent from N1.539 billion in 2014 to N518 billion in 2016, which represents about 45 per cent of total transactions in 2016.

Over the nine-year period, domestic transactions have significantly decreased by 85.43 per cent from N3.556 billion in 2007 to N634 billion in 2016. The total domestic transactions increased by 27.32 per cent between January and December.

The institutional composition of the domestic market increased by 63.16 per cent from N21.85 billion in January to N35.65 billion in December.

The retail composition decreased by N14.14 billion from N18.88 billion to N16.21 billion within the same period.

Institutional investors outperformed their retail counterparts for the most of 2016.

On a monthly basis, the NSE polls trading figures from major custodians and market operators on their foreign portfolio investment (FPI) flows.