Foreign Portfolio Equity Investment and the Performance of the Nigerian Stock Market: A Sectoral Distribution Analysis

Abstract

Most developing countries, such as Nigeria, have always been challenged by saving-investment gap, while many of them have consistently harnessed the Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) inflows to bridge the gap. In spite of the increased inflow of this type of investment to the Nigerian economy, its influence on stock market performance has been less consensual while such investment is also vulnerable to economic shocks. Therefore, this study examines the effect of foreign portfolio equity investment on stock market performance in Nigeria. The study employed ex-post facto research method using monthly time series data from 2007 to 2017. Using Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model, the results reveal that there exists a significant difference in the sectoral distribution of FPI inflows to the Nigerian economy. It also finds that foreign portfolio equity investment has a significant positive influence on the Nigerian stock market performance at 5% level (t-stat= 6.8913, P= 0.0000<0.05; R2 = 0.77). The study concludes that foreign portfolio equity investment significantly predict stock market performance in Nigeria, and therefore recommends that the regulatory authorities should deepen the equity stocks of the market and encourage more firms to get listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange with a view to channelling more investments into the economy thereby fast-tracking industrialisation and economic development.