Ghana Equity Markets | 17 Sep 2015: Equity investors on GSE lose US$12 Mill, GSE Composite index 0.41% lower …

Accra, Ghana Capital Markets in Africa —  The Ghana Equity markets continued to stay in the red zone at the end of Thursday’s trading session. The equities market capitalization lost GHS 46.50 million (about US$12 million) to close at GHS 62,464 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 62,510 recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index plunged by 0.41 percent or 8.53 points to close the day at 2,061.96 points, representing a year-to-date performance 0f -8.80 percent. The financial Index slumped by 0.28 percent or 5.69 points to trade at 2,017.57 with a year-to-date return of -10.08 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 619,831 (a rise of about 58.59 percent from previous trading session total volume of 390,841 shares) and total traded value was GHS 453,036 (a fall of about 72.10 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 1,623,797). UT Bank recorded 516,300 shares (almost 83.30 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 51,630 (about 11.40 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Ghana Commercial Bank (recorded 63,500 shares at GHS 247,576), CAL Bank Ghana (recorded a volume of 10,230 shares valued at GHS 8,695), Ecobank Transnational Incorporated Togo (registered 8,500 shares valued at GHS 2,550) and Standard Chartered Bank (traded 7,530 shares with total value of GHS 122,047). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 98 percent of the total volume and about 96 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 12 traded securities via 105 transactions, two gainers and three losers were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ended negative. Fan Milk rose to GHS 6.75 by adding GHS 0.01 or 0.15 percent and Ghana Commercial Bank surged to GHS 3.90 from GHS 3.89 by gaining 0.26 percent. Whereas, UT Bank sagged by 9.09 percent to end at GHS 0.10, Ghana Oil plunged by 5.25 percent to stop at GHS 1.50 and Ecobank Ghana tumbled by 0.88 percent at GHS 7.84.

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 3.9604 after losing 3.86 percent and traded at GHS 4.3329 against the Euro after falling by 0.66 percent. The Cedi depreciated against Swiss franc to settle at GHS 3.9604 after sagging by 0.98 percent. Ghanaian currency dropped by 1.57 percent to close at GHS 5.9479 and depreciated 1.96 percent to end at GHS 0.2885 against British pound and South Africa rand respectively.