Ghana Equity Markets | 16 Sep 2015: Ghana equities continue to bleed, indices lower, investors unhappy …

Accra, Ghana Capital Markets in Africa —  At the end of today’s equity trading session, the equities market capitalization lost GHS 16 million (about US$4.2 million) to close at GHS 62,510 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 62,526 recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index sagged by 0.14 percent or 2.94 points to close the day at 2,070.49 points, representing a year-to-date performance 0f -8.43 percent. The financial Index slumped by 0.25 percent or 9.82 points to trade at 2,023.26 with a year-to-date return of -9.82 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 390,841 (a rise of about 8.86 percent from previous trading session total volume of 359,023 shares) and total traded value was GHS 1,623,797 (a rise of about 160.16 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 624,161). CAL Bank recorded 130,783 shares (almost 33.46 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 11,165 (about 6.85 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Ghana Commercial Bank (recorded 109,796 shares at GHS 427,290), Total Petroleum (recorded a volume of 45,600 shares valued at GHS 245,328), Standard Chartered Bank (registered 39,400 shares valued at GHS 639,949) and Camelot (traded 25,000 shares with total value of GHS 3,000). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 90 percent of the total volume and about 88 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 13 traded securities via 109 transactions, two gainers and three losers were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ended negative. Fan Milk rose to GHS 6.74 by adding GHS 0.04 or 0.60 percent and Unilever Ghana soared to GHS 7.62 from GHS 7.60 by gaining 0.26 percent. Whereas, Ghana Commercial Bank went down by 1.77 percent to end at GHS 3.89, Total Petroleum plunged by 0.37 percent to stop at GHS 5.38 and Standard Chartered Ghana fell by 0.06 percent at GHS 16.23.

On the foreign exchange market front, the Ghanaian Cedi continued to drop against major trading currencies. The Cedi traded against the US dollar at GHS 3.8074 after falling by 0.56 percent and traded at GHS 4.3043 against the Euro by losing 0.63 percent. The Cedi depreciated against Swiss franc to settle at GHS 3.9216 after sagging by 0.60 percent. Ghanaian currency dropped by 0.49 percent to close at GHS 5.8547 and lost 1.31 percent to end at GHS 0.2828 against British pound and South Africa rand respectively.