Foreign portfolio investment in the Nigerian stock market dropped by eight per cent in the first quarter of 2021 to N60.11 billion from N65.27 billion in the same period of 2020.
Analysis of the data from the Nigerian Exchange Limited, showed that foreign investors injected N16.73 billion into the stock market in January; N23.02 billion in February; and N20.36 billion in March.
However, foreign and domestic investors pulled out a total of N339.06 billion from the Nigerian stock market in the first three months of this year.
The data also showed that foreign portfolio investors sold Nigerian stocks worth N90.12 billion in the first quarter while domestic investors withdrew N248.94 billion from the market.
Foreign portfolio investment outflow includes sales transactions or liquidation of portfolio investments through the stock market, while the FPI inflow includes purchase transactions on the exchange.
The market capitalisation of equities fell by N230 billion in Q1 2021 from N20.66 trillion at the end of December 2020 to N20.43 trillion on March 31, 2021.
The All-Share Index declined from 39,512.31 basis points on December 30 to 39,045.13bps at the end of March this year.