Ghana Equity Watch | 11 Aug 2015: Ghana equity composite index 0.1% down but financial index 1.54% up … investors lose US$274 million …

Accra, Ghana (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Ghanaian Stock Exchange (GSE) ended in mixed feelings at the end of Tuesday’s trading session. The market capitalization fell by GHS 934 million to close at GHS 63,142 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 64,076 million recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index lost 2.12 points or 0.10 percent to close the day at 2,168.20 points, representing a year- to- date performance 0f -4.11 percent. The financial Index rose by 33.80 points or 1.54 percent to trade at 2,191.28 points with a year-to-date return of -2.33 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 47,189 (a rise of about 22.49 percent from previous trading session total volume of 38,528 shares) and total traded value was GHS 160,977 (an increase of about 112.41 percent compared to previous trading session value of GHS 75,785).  In term of the most actively traded stocks, Ghana Commercial Bank had 10,512 shares (almost 22.28 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 43,521 (about 37.04 percent of the total value traded). Others were Mega Africa Capital (recorded 10,000 shares at GHS 55,000), Ghana Oil Limited (recorded a volume of 5,400 shares valued at GHS 88,553), Ecobank Ghana (registered 5,346 shares valued at GHS 43,082) and CAL Bank Ghana (traded 3,700 shares with total value of GHS 3,300). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 74 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 71 transactions, four gainers and three laggards were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ends positive. The CAL Bank added GHS 0.01 or 1.01 percent to end at GHS 1.00, Enterprise Group had a price gains of GHS 0.02 or 1.00 percent to close at GHS 2.02 and Total Petroleum Ghana closed at GHS 5.40 after the price move d by GHS 0.05 or 0.93 percent. Ghana Oil also climbed by 0.61 percent to settle at GHS 1.64. Conversely, PZ Cussons Ghana dropped to GHS 0.34 from GHS 0.35 resulting to 2.86 percent drops and Ecobank Ghana plunged by 0.98 percent to end at GHS 8.06. Ghana Commercial Bank also went down by 0.24 percent to end at GHS 4.14.

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 3.7803 by depreciating by 0.60 percent and traded at GHS 4.1534 against the Euro by falling by 0.98 percent. Likewise, the Cedi lost value against British pound and Swiss franc by trading at GHS 5.8742 and GHS 3.8356 by losing 1.10 percent and 0.35 percent respectively. Similarly, the Ghanaian currency dropped by 0.34 percent to close at GHS 0.2974 against South Africa rand.