Ghana Equity Watch | 30 July 2015: Ghana exchange’s market capitalization give up US$99 million …

Accra, Ghana (Capital Markets in Africa):- The Ghanaian Stock Exchange (GSE) on Thursday ended in red, so the market capitalization fell by GHS 337 million to close at GHS 62,995 million relative to market capitalization of GHS 63,332 million recorded at previous trading session.

The benchmark composite index lost 27.88 points or 1.24 percent to close the day at 2,218.63 points, representing a year- to- date performance 0f -1.67 percent. The financial Index also declined by 28.54 points or 1.24 percent to trade at 2,270.70 points with a year-to-date return of 1.21 percent.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume was 473,084 (a fall of about 88.75 percent from previous trading session total volume of 4,203,803 shares) and total traded value was GHS 1.601 million (a reduction of about 114.98 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 744,868).  ECOBANK Transnational Bank had 231,600 shares (almost 48.96 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 69,480 (about 4.34 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Ecobank Ghana (recorded 175,569 shares at GHS 1.439 million about 89.91 percent), CAL Bank (recorded a volume of 53,995 shares valued at GHS 56,367), Enterprise Group (registered 5,150 shares valued at GHS 10,106) and Standard Pref Ghana (traded 3,000 shares with total value of GHS 2,070). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 94 percent of the total volume and about 98 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 13 traded securities via 126 transactions, one gainer and four laggards were recorded, so the market breath/sentiment ends negative. The Ghana Oil was the lone gainer by surging to GHS 1.54 by gaining GHS 0.01 or 0.65 percent. The losers were Ecobank Transnational Incorporation Togo dropped to GHS 0.30 from GHS 0.31 resulting to3.23 percent drops and Ecobank plunged by 2.84 percent to end at GHS 8.20. Other losers were Ghana Commercial Bank also went down by 2.22 percent to end at GHS 4.41, CAL Bank tumbled by 1.89 percent to settle at GHS 1.04 and Benso Oil Palm plummeted by 1.18 percent to trade at 4.26. Standard Chartered closing price was GHS19.10 after dropping GHS 0.04 or 0.21 percent.

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 3.4251 by depreciating by 0.38 percent and traded at GHS 3.7760 against the Euro by falling by 0.18 percent. Likewise, the Cedi lost value against British pound and Swiss franc by settling at GHS 5.3505 and GHS 3.5533 by losing 0.45 percent and 0.47 percent respectively. Similarly, the Ghanaian currency dropped by 0.77 percent to close at GHS 0.2735 against South Africa rand.