The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has linked the current upbeat performance in the Nigerian Equities market to the inflow of $2.2 billion foreign capital from portfolio investors.
The cash came in through the special Investors/ Exporters (I&E) Forex Window launched last April, according CBN Director, Banking Supervision, Abdullahi Ahmad.
The creation of the special window is to attract foreign portfolio investment in the equities market.
Ahmad said investor sentiment towards equities has remained bullish since the introduction of the I&E Forex window.
The CBN director was optimistic that the new forex window would continue to attract foreign investors to the economy with the equities market and naira the biggest beneficiaries.
Under the former dispensation, uncertainty about availability of forex, coupled with some tough fiscal policies in the year, were largely blamed for investors’ lack of confidence to invest in equities.
Between January 4 and June 9, 2017, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, mirrored by the All-Share Index and Market Capitalisation had appreciated by 23.8 per cent and 24.4 percent respectively. Both indices had opened the year for trading with 26,874.62 bases points and N9.247 trillion and grew to 33,276.68 bases points and N11.504 trillion within the period under review.
Last week alone, the All Share Index gained 1.6 per cent to close at 33,810.56 points, pushing year-to-date gain to 25.8 per cent. Accordingly, investors gained N187.9 billion within the week as market capitalisation improved to N11.7 trillion.
