Foreign capital inflow to the Nigerian exchange in the first two months of 2024 rose to about N40.71bn.

This was revealed in the February 2024 Domestic & Foreign Portfolio Investment Report of Nigerian Exchange Limited.

It was indicated that foreign capital inflow for January and Feburary 2024 surpassed N13.52bn which was the figure for the first two months of 2023.

Similarly, foreign outflow also increased to N78.21bn in the same period of time with January recording N37.33bn and February’s at N40.88bn

Total foreign transactions on the exchange increased by 23.91 per cent from N53.11bn (about $39.13m) to N65.81bn (about $42.61m) between January and February 2024.

Foreign transactions on the local bourse for the two months stood at N118.92bn.

The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, during an investors call organised by the NGX alongside the CBN team early March reiterated the regulator’s commitment to addressing distortions in the foreign exchange market, assuring foreign portfolio investors of the bank’s resolve to prioritise developing a functional FX market with robust supply.

The instability in the forex market had caused foreign investors to pause their involvement in the country, a move which the country is yet to recover from.

As of the end of February 2024, total transactions at the nation’s bourse decreased by 45.07 per cent from N651.52bn (about $479.99m) in January to N357.88bn (about $231.70m) in February 2024.

“The performance of the current month when compared to the performance in February 2023 (N188.91bn) revealed that total transactions increased significantly by 89.44 per cent.

“Similarly, in February 2024, the total value of transactions executed by Domestic Investors outperformed transactions executed by Foreign Investors by circa 64 per cent. A further analysis of the total transactions executed between the current and prior month (January 2024) revealed that total domestic transactions decreased by 51.20 per cent from N598.41bn in January to N292.02bn in February 2024.” part of the report read.

Meanwhile, a comparison of domestic transactions in the current and prior month (January 2024) revealed that retail transactions decreased by 43.29 per cent from N285.58bn in January to N161.94bn in February 2024.

Similarly, the institutional composition of the domestic market decreased by 58.40 per cent from N312.83bn in January 2024 to N130.13bn in February 2024.

Over a 16 year period, domestic transactions decreased by 10.94 per cent from N3.556tn in 2007 to N3.167tn in 2023; foreign transactions also decreased by 33.28 per cent from N616bn to N411bn over the same period.

Total domestic transactions accounted for about 89 per cent of the total transactions carried out in 2023, whilst foreign transactions accounted for about 11 per cent of the total transactions in the same period.

Thus far, transaction data for 2024 shows that total domestic transactions are about N890.48bn, whilst total foreign transactions stood at N118.92bn.