Ghana Equity Watch | 8 July 2015: Ghana equities stay in red …. GSE composite index slumps by 918bps

Accra, Ghana (Capital Markets in Africa):- Ghana stock markets continued on the bearish path at the end of today’s trading session. The benchmark composite index slumped by 0.39 points or 9.18 percent to end the day at 2,337.61, its year- to- date performance reduces to 3.39 percent. At the same time, the financial Index fell by 17.24 points or 0.72 percent to trade at 2,369.07 with a year-to-date return of 5.59 percent. The market capitalization was recorded at GHS 64,547.37 million after losing GHS 50million.

From the market activity perspective, trading activity on the stock market was thinner today. The total volume was 263,492  (a decrease of about 84.92 percent from yesterday’s total volume of 1,747,205 shares) and total traded value was GHS 1.155 million (an increase of about 154.81 percent compared with previous trading session value of GHS 453,283). Ghana Commercial Bank recorded a volume of 163,965 shares (almost 62.23 percent of the total volume) to value at GHS 786,846 (about 68 percent of the total value traded). Other most actively traded stocks were Ghana Oil Limited (had 18,300 shares at GHS 26,535), SIC Insurance (recorded a volume of 17,800 shares valued at GHS 3,026), STARWIN Products (registered 3,000 shares valued at GHS 300) and UT Bank (traded 500 shares with total value of GHS 1,588). The top five most actively traded stocks by volume accounted for almost 83 percent of the total volume and about 71 percent of the total value traded.

Looking at the price movers and shakers, out of the 18 traded securities today there were two gainers and three losers, so the market breath today end negative. SIC Insurance closed at GHS 0.17 after adding 13.33 percent or GHS 0.02 and Total Petroleum Ghana added 3.20 percent to end at GHS 5.46. The three slackers were, UT Bank Ghana with a drop of GHS 0.01 or 5.56 percent to end at GHS 0.17, ECOBANK Ghana tumbled by 2.16 percent or GHS 0.19 to conclude at GHS 8.60 and Standard Chartered Ghana plunged by 0.50 percent with closing price of GHS 19.84..

On the foreign exchange market front, the Ghanaian Cedi appreciated all the major trading currencies today. The Cedi trade at GHS 3.9292 to the US dollar and GHS 5.6284 to the British pound, by adding 6.65 percent and 8.29 percent. Likewise, the Cedi gained against Swiss Franc and Euro to close at GHS 4.1573 and GHS 3.8716 respectively. The local currency appreciated by 4.42 percent to close at GHS 0.303 against South Africa rand.