Edition 26 | Thursday 27 August 2026
There were four trading sessions in this coverage week, not five. The Federal Government declared Tuesday 25 August a public holiday for Eid ul Mawlid, and the exchange closed. In the four sessions that did trade, the market fell in every one.
That is the surface. Underneath it, a monthly report released quietly on Friday said something more consequential about who actually owns this year's rally, and how thin the foreign half of it has become.
Market Wrap
Harmattan's coverage week runs Tuesday to Tuesday, and this one ran short. The All-Share Index fell from 241,611.23 at Tuesday 18 August to 239,085.17 at Monday 24 August, a decline of 2,526.06 points or 1.05 per cent, while capitalisation fell from ₦155.97 trillion to ₦154.40 trillion, a loss of ₦1.57 trillion or 1.01 per cent. Both are Harmattan arithmetic, measured over a window that does not match the exchange's own Monday to Friday reporting week and which this week lost its final session to the holiday. Monday's close was the tenth consecutive losing session by Harmattan's count. Year to date, the market is up 53.64 per cent, down from 53.81 per cent on Friday.
The exchange's own week, ended Friday 21 August, was heavier. The index shed 3,268.04 points or 1.35 per cent from 242,619.20, and capitalisation closed at ₦154.534 trillion, down 1.33 per cent. Turnover was 6.242 billion shares worth ₦157.764 billion across 186,496 deals, against 12.153 billion shares worth ₦176.058 billion in 224,146 deals a week earlier. Fifty-nine equities fell against eighteen that rose. Financial services carried 89.62 per cent of all volume and 35.77 per cent of all value, and consumer goods was the only sector index to finish higher, by 0.05 per cent. In Friday's session R. T. Briscoe led gainers at 9.63 per cent, followed by Fortis Global Insurance at 8.11 per cent, while International Energy Insurance fell the full 10 per cent to ₦3.87. The currency gave back a little ground across the coverage week, with the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market rate moving from ₦1,343.32 to ₦1,346.98, weaker by ₦3.66 or 0.27 per cent on Harmattan arithmetic. The parallel market held near ₦1,405, a spread of roughly ₦58.02. External reserves stood at $53.11 billion as at 24 August, the highest level since December 2008.
One note on timing. This edition covers the week to Tuesday 25 August, and the market has traded since. On Wednesday 26 August the index fell a further 402.25 points or 0.17 per cent to 238,682.92, an eleventh consecutive losing session, with capitalisation down about ₦259.76 billion. The currency moved the other way, firming to ₦1,343.59.
Dollar equivalents use the NFEM closing rate of ₦1,346.98 on Monday 24 August, the last published rate of a coverage week whose final Tuesday was a public holiday, and are applied to headline figures only. On that basis the market is worth about $114.6 billion, and the exchange's weekly turnover about $117.1 million. Harmattan arithmetic.
"5.6 per cent. That is how much of July's trading on the Nigerian Exchange belonged to foreign investors, in a market that has added more than half its value this year."
The Big Story
The NGX Domestic and Foreign Portfolio Investment Report for July, published during the coverage week, records total transactions of ₦2.37 trillion, up 38.17 per cent on June. Domestic investors accounted for 94.4 per cent of that, and foreign investors 5.6 per cent, the lowest monthly share recorded this year. Foreign transactions fell to ₦132.62 billion from ₦186.79 billion, split between ₦41.59 billion coming in and ₦91.03 billion going out. Across the first seven months, total activity reached ₦11.98 trillion against ₦6.01 trillion in the same period of 2025, with domestic transactions of ₦10.68 trillion already exceeding the ₦9.27 trillion recorded across the whole of last year. Foreign transactions were close to flat at ₦1.29 trillion. Net foreign outflow for the seven months was ₦266.07 billion, against ₦61.83 billion a year earlier.
Speaking at Coronation Asset Management's half-year review on Friday, managing director Aigbovbioise Aig-Imoukhuede put foreign participation at 12.1 per cent of transaction value by June, against 27 per cent a year earlier, and noted that the value of foreign portfolios had barely moved, rising from ₦1.13 trillion to ₦1.16 trillion. What changed, on his reading, was not that foreigners left but that Nigerians arrived in volume. Domestic activity expanded 129.1 per cent. The explanations offered for foreign reluctance are consistent across analysts and unglamorous: government paper yielding above 17 per cent at the one-year tenor, an election calendar that investors are already positioning around, operational questions about the move to T plus one settlement on 1 June, and Nigeria's continued absence from the FTSE Russell frontier index, whose restoration was confirmed in March for 21 September and then placed back under review on 30 June.
For a diaspora investor or an institutional allocator, this cuts two ways and it is worth holding both. The optimistic reading is that Nigerian institutions and Nigerian savers have repriced their own market without needing permission from London or New York, which is the definition of a deeper market and the thing every frontier exchange claims to want. The cautious reading is that a rally held up by one class of buyer has a single point of failure, and that domestic institutions rotating into 17 per cent government paper is exactly what the past eleven sessions look like. Both readings are supported by the same data. The question the next quarter answers is whether foreign money returns to a market that no longer waits for it.
Nigeria's Money
The Dangote Petroleum Refinery listing has become the most anticipated offer in Nigerian market history, and one of the more credible explanations for the current sell-off is that people are selling shares they own to raise cash for shares that do not yet exist. Dr Paul Uzum of Halo Capital Management, quoted in the Guardian during the coverage week, put the refinery offer first among the drivers of the decline, ahead of election positioning and portfolio rotation, on the reasoning that investors are creating liquidity for a subscription they expect to be heavily scaled back. It is a rational thing to do. It is also being done in the absence of almost every fact an investor would normally need.
Here is what exists. An application has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A $2.5 billion private placement completed in July, and a $1 billion underwriting programme was disclosed on 18 August, comprising a funded $600 million placement participation and a $400 million commitment that activates only when the offer opens. Here is what does not exist. No approval. No published prospectus, with September the stated target. No offer price, no minimum lot, no confirmed percentage of the company being sold, and no subscription window. In June the Commission issued cease and desist directives against registered capital market operators who were soliciting advance subscriptions for an offer that had not been applied for, describing the campaign as capable of misleading investors and distorting market expectations. The gap between a Nigerian's appetite to participate and the existence of a legal instrument to participate in is precisely the gap that informal money falls into, and it is being filled at the moment by flyers.
Africa Watch
Ghana's Gold Board ordered on Monday that artisanal gold doré purchased by self-financing aggregators must be refined at approved domestic refineries before any export application will be considered, effectively banning exports of unrefined doré under those arrangements from 1 September. GoldBod, created last year as the sole authorised buyer and exporter of artisanal gold, exported 104 metric tons in 2025 and is on course to match or exceed that this year. The directive is a piece of the same problem Nigeria keeps circling from a different direction: an enormous informal sector producing real value, and a state trying to route that value through a formal channel it controls, in order to capture the foreign exchange and the refining margin at once. Ghana has chosen monopsony and mandated processing. Whether that formalises the sector or simply pushes part of it back into smuggling is the question the next six months will answer.
What to Watch
Two things, both inside days. The Central Bank offered ₦700 billion of Treasury Bills on Wednesday across the 91, 182 and 364-day tenors, and the results had not been published when this edition went out. The one-year stop rate went to 17.59 per cent at the 12 August auction, a rise taken in the face of ₦4.19 trillion of bids for the ₦500 billion of one-year paper on offer, and whether it holds, climbs again or finally breaks lower is the single clearest signal available on whether the rotation out of equities has further to run. Second, FTSE Russell is reported to have promised an update on Nigeria's suspended frontier reclassification by the end of August, which would mean this week. That decision does not change a single company's earnings, but it determines whether the passive foreign money that tracks the index has a date to work towards or another quarter of nothing.
Nigeria's market spent this week being carried almost entirely by Nigerians, and that is not the weakness the headline share suggests. A market that can add half its value in seven months on domestic savings alone has proven something about itself. What it has not yet proven is that it can do it twice.
Nothing published in Harmattan constitutes financial advice. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.
Bestman Eleanya
Founder, Harmattan
hello@harmattanintel.com harmattanintel.substack.com