Foreigners reduce purchases of CSE stocks

…foreign share of CSE 22%, FTSE/CySE 20 at 26%

Foreign accounts reduced their net purchases of CSE stocks to only CYP 2.5 mln in August, down from net purchases of CYP 12 mln in July and CYP 19 mln in June, bringing their total 3-month total purchases to CYP 33.5 mln, according to data compiled by the Financial Mirror based on the CSE’s Monthly Bulletin.

Total foreign purchases in August reached CYP 30.55 mln against total sales of CYP 28 mln, of which foreign institutionals were net buyers of CYP 3.1 mln and private foreign accounts net sellers to the tune of CYP 700.000.

Domestic institutionals were net buyers of CSE shares to the tune of CYP 2.35 mln while domestic private individuals were net sellers to the tune of CYP 4.9 mln in August, the CSE data showed.

Foreign holding steady

The share of foreign holding of the market cap of the CSE was marginally lower at 22% or the equivalent of CYP 1.2 bln out of total CYP 5.3 bln CSE market cap end of August 2006, down slightly from 23.2% end of July.

Foreign private accounts held CYP 839 mln of CSE market cap or 16%, and foreign institutionals CYP 355 mln or 6.6% share. Domestic private accounts held CYP 2 bln of CSE market cap for a 38% share and domestic institutuionals CYP 2.12 bln of CSE market cap for a 40% share.

The share of foreign holding of FTSE/CySE 20 market cap was CYP 831 mln out of CYP 4.3 bln total market cap. With the share of institutionals at CYP 294 mln, the total holding of foreign accounts of Footsie stocks was CYP 1.1 bln or 26%.

Domestic private accounts held CYP 1.66 bln or 39% of Footsie market cap and domestic institutionals CYP 1.5 bln or 35% share.

According to the CSE monthly bulletin, the number of active institutional accounts in August were 404, of whom 385 were domestic and 19 foreign, while the total number of active private accounts reached 5553 of whom 5277 were local, and 276 foreign.