Ghana Equity Watch | 17 Aug 2015: Ghana equity markets witness the bull run , Societe Generale tops gainer …

Accra, Ghana (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Ghanaian Stock Exchange (GSE) on Monday ended in green, so the market capitalization added GHS 34 million to close at GHS 63,070 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 63,036 recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index surged by 7.91 points or 0.37 percent to close the day at 2,156.68 points, representing a year-to-date performance 0f -4.61 percent. The financial Index also advanced by 8.43 points or 0.39 percent to trade at 2,167.98 points with a year-to-date return of -3.37 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 63,735 (a rise of about 0.05 percent from previous trading session total volume of 68,974 shares) and total traded value was GHS 76,578 (a rise of about 38 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 123,400). Societe Generale had 23,971 shares (almost 37.61 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 21,495 (about 28.07 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Cocoa Processing Ghana (recorded 15,700 shares at GHS 314), CAL Bank (recorded a volume of 10,000 shares valued at GHS 9,900), HFC Bank (registered 3,200 shares valued at GHS 4,160) and Fan Milk Limited (traded 3,000 shares with total value of GHS 17,760). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 88 percent of the total volume and about 70 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 16 traded securities via 58 transactions, five gainers and one loser were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ended positive. Tullow Oil Ghana fell to GHS 32.99 by losing GHS 0.01 or 0.03 percent.

Societe Generale surged to GHS 0.90 from GHS 0.85 by gaining 5.88 percent and HFC Bank climbed by 4.00 percent to end at GHS 1.30. Likewise, Ghana Oil rose by 1.78 percent to end at GHS 1.72 and Unilever Ghana advanced by 0.27 percent or 0.02 points to settle at GHS 7.38. After adding 0.17 percent, Fan Milk Ghana closed at GHS 5.92.

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 3.9101 by depreciating by 0.94 percent and traded at GHS 4.3451 against the Euro by falling by 0.72 percent. The Cedi also lost value against Swiss franc to settle at GHS 4.009 by losing 4.13 percent. Ghanaian currency dropped by 1.15 percent to close at GHS 5.1060 and by 21.02 percent to end at GHS 0.3823 against British pound and South Africa rand respectively.