Ghana Market Watch | June 17th 2015: Ghana equity markets indices and market capitalization bounce to green today, GHS 117 million up

Accra, Ghana (Capital Markets in Africa):- Ghana equity markets indices and market capitalization climbed at the end of today’s trading session, amid of increased investor appetite. The benchmark composite index surged 21.14 points or about 0.77 percent to end the day at 2,382.07, bringing the year- to- date return to 5.35 percent. Equally, the financial Index climbed by 32.1 points or 1.11 percent to 2,446.19 with a year-to-date return of 9.03 percent. Likewise, the market capitalization gained nearly GHS 116.7 million (rose by 0.03percent relative to yesterday market cap of GHS 64,662.45) to settle at GHS 64,779.15 million.

From the market activity perspective, the total volume and total turnover were recorded at 170,616 (a decline of about 89 percent from yesterday’s total volume of 1.646 million shares) and GHS 345.066 (a decrease of 91 percent compared with previous trading section turnover of GHS 3.937 million). CAL Bank Limited Ghana (89,218 volume with a valued of GHS 99,823 million), Ghana Commercial Bank (31,264 shares traded at GHS 153,174), PZ CUSSONS Ghana (recorded volume of 23,400 at GHS 8,201), TOTAL Petroleum (volume of 6,220 at GHS 32,978) and FAN MILK Limited (5,300 volume traded at GHS 29,693) were the top five most actively traded stocks by volume and accounted for nearly 98 percent of the total volume and about 94 percent of the total market turnover.

Looking at the price movers, out of the 16 traded securities today there was 4 leader, 3 laggards and 9 remained unchanged, so the market breath today end positive. The four price leaders were Standard Chartered Bank Ghana rose by 5.26 percent or GHS 1.00 with a closing price of GHS 20.00. PZ Cussons surged by 9.37 percent or GHS 0.03 to end at GHS 0.35, CAL Bank Limited accelerated by 1.82 percent or GHS 0.02 to end at GHS 1.12 and Mechanical Llyod gained 5.88 percent to end at GHS 0.18. However, the three losers were, Unilever Ghana tumbled by 0.40 percent or GHS 0.03 to conclude at GHS 7.52, Ghana Oil plunged by 2.78 percent to settle at GHS 1.40 and Total Petroleum fell by 0.93 percent with the closing price of GHS 5.30.

On the foreign exchange market front, the Ghanaian Cedi continued to be under pressure as local investors now consider some foreign currencies as safe-havens. The Cedi depreciated against all the other major trading currencies today. The US Dollar on the back of solid US housing figure which strengthened the case for the Fed starting rate hikes as early as September closed at GHS 4.23, by appreciating against the Cedi by 1.08 percent. In spite of Euro was held hostage by the Greece crisis, the Cedi depreciated against the Euro by 0.95 percent to close at GHS 4.75. On the same trend, the local currency was weaker against the British Pound by 1.55 percent to end at GHS 6.61. Equally, the Cedi went down relative to Swiss Franc and South African Rand by 1.51 percent (to end at GHS 4.54) and 1.38 percent (to trade at GHS 0.34) respectively.