Ghana Equity Markets | 23 Sep 2015: Indices Marginally down, Investors lose US$ 0.2 Mill …

Accra, Ghana Capital Markets in Africa  —  Ghana Stock Exchange equity markets continued to stay in the red district at the of Wednesday’s trading session. The equities market capitalization lost GHS 880,000 (about US$ 229,765) to close at GHS 62,339.27 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 62,340.15 recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index lost 0.01 percent or 0.16 points to close the day at 2,039.07 points, representing a year-to-date performance 0f -9.82 percent. The financial Index sagged by 0.02 percent or 0.38 points to trade at 1,991.88 with a year-to-date return of -11.22 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 1,482,830 (a rise of about 80.14 percent from previous trading session total volume of 823,168 shares) and total traded value was GHS 938,748  (a decreased of about 54.67 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 2,070,791). Aluworks Limited recorded 1,014,085 shares (almost 68.39 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 60,839 (about 6.48 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Ghana Commercial Bank (recorded 204,177 shares at GHS 753,450), Ecobank Transnational  (recorded a volume of 141,833 shares valued at GHS 42,549), UT Bank (registered 43,90 shares valued at GHS 4,390) and SIC Insurance (traded 33,500 shares with total value of GHS 4,020). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 97 percent of the total volume and about 92 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 16 traded securities via 146 transactions, four gainers and two losers were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ended positive. African Champion surged to GHS 0.02 by adding GHS 0.01 or 100.00 percent, Aluworks Ghana soared to GHS 0.06 from GHS 0.05 by gaining 20.00 percent, Societe Generale Ghana increased by 1.27 percent to trade at GHS 0.90 and Standard Chartered Bank advanced by 0.06 percent to close at GHS 16.26.  Whereas, Ghana Commercial Bank sagged by 0.27 percent to end at GHS 3.69 and Guinness Ghana plunged by 0.45 percent to close at GHS 2.19.  

On the foreign exchange market front, the Ghanaian Cedi appreciated against major trading currencies. The Cedi traded against the US dollar at GHS 3.8300 after appreciated by  0.51 percent and traded at GHS 4.2707 against the Euro after adding by 2.47 percent. The Cedi appreciated against Swiss franc to settle at GHS 3.9353 after adding by 1.79 percent. Ghanaian currency surged by 1.70 percent to close at GHS 5.8961 and soared 3.84 percent to end at GHS 0.2798 against British pound and South Africa rand respectively.