The total value of transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in the month of December 2017 rose significantly by 72.64 percent to N480.80 billion from N278.49 billion recorded in the preceding month of November, statistics of activities on the bourse for the year examined by Businessamlive.com have shown.
The impressive uptick in activities for the month reflects postings for the whole year which various market operators attributed to a domestic and foreign investment community ostensibly egged on by a perceived improved business climate in the country.
A breakdown of this figures showed that total foreign transactions increased by 37.56 percent from N150.10 billion recorded in November 2017 to N206.48 billion in December 2017, while domestic transactions significantly increased by 113.66 percent from N128.39 billion to N274.32 billion in the same period.
The aggregate value of transactions from January to December 2017 increased significantly by 68.25 percent from N1.511 trillion recorded in 2016 to N2.543 trillion in 2017
Further analysis on The Nigerian Stock Exchange statistics showed that total domestic transactions significantly increased by 434.63 percent between January and December.
Also, the institutional composition of the domestic market increased by 673.97 percent from N31.19 in January to N241.40 in December, while the retail composition also increased by 63.62 percent from N20.12 billion to N32.92 billion within the same period, indicating a higher participation by institutional investors over their retail counterparts.
Since 2011, foreign transactions have consistently outperformed domestic transactions. However, domestic transactions marginally outperformed foreign transactions in 2016 and 2017, accounting for 52 percent of the total transaction value in 2017.
Also, foreign transactions which were N1.539 trillion in 2014 declined to N518 billion in 2016 but increased significantly by 133 percent to N1.208t in 2017 thereby accounting for about 48 percent of total transactions in 2017. Over an eleven (11) year period, domestic transactions have decreased by 62.46 percent from N3.556t in 2007 to N1.335t in 2017.
However, there was a significant increase in 2017 by 111 percent from N634 billion recorded in 2016.
The recent string of economic releases suggests that the nation’s economy might have bottomed out, with fragile signs of recovery, driven largely by improved liquidity in the foreign exchange markets and policy measures to improve the business environment, providing a cue to foreign investors and their Nigerian counterparts.
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