The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) has started the week with new gains as the stock market opened on Monday June 21, 2021. The benchmark indexes edged up marginally as the volume by trade and value of trade bounced back after closing modestly lower in last trading session on Friday June 18, 2021.
At the end of the first week-day of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 1,659,966 shares were traded compared to a total of 275,792 shares traded on the previous trading day, Friday June 18. This represents a 502 percent improvement in volume of shares traded.
Moreover, the gains notched correspond to a market value of GHc1,180,630.70, representing 149 percent improvement in market turnover compared to the previous market value which stood at GHc473,421.87.
Trade by Volume and Value
Moreover, in the aggregate, four GSE listed equities participated in trading session compared to eight which participated in the previous session.
The trading session on Monday ended with one loser, namely Cal Bank which recorded a 1.41 percent share depreciation. Meanwhile, Cal Bank recorded the highest volume traded of 1.6 million shares accounting for over 80% of the total volume traded. This was followed by MTN Ghana which traded 31,187 shares despite leading the trade by volume in the previous trading session by 203,497. This was followed by GCB Bank (500) and Unilever Ghana (300).
However, regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) declined by 0.6 (-0.02%) points to close at 2,645.28 points compared to 2,645.88 points recorded in the previous trading session on Friday. This represents a 1-week loss of 1.85% and a 4-week gain of 9.38%, and an overall year-to-date gain of 36.24%.
Financial Index
Likewise, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) which constitutes only listed stocks from the financial sector including banking and insurance sector stocks also decreased by 0.06% to 1,881.74 points, making it a 1-week loss of 0.17%, a 4-week loss of 1.02%, and a year-to-date gain of 5.55%.
It should however be noted that whereas the calculation of the GSE Composite Index is based on the volume weighted average closing price of all listed stocks, the GSE Financial Index constitutes only listed stocks from the financial sector including banking and insurance sector stocks.
Furthermore, the market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange, which captures the total market value of all outstanding shares, hence, determining the worth of various companies listed on the local bourse, stood at GH¢61.5 billion. Given its simplicity and effectiveness for risk assessment, Analysts reveal that the market cap can be a helpful metric for investors in determining which stocks they are interested in, and how to diversify various portfolio with companies of different size.
Despite the pickup in both trade by volume and trade value, the indices still remain below those recorded in the previous weeks.
Analyst hold that the demand for bargain stocks, that is shares trading at a lower price than a company’s intrinsic value or performance, remain a contributing factor to the gradual pickup in market performance.
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