The Ghana stock market index may have advanced for two sessions out of three this week, but Wednesday’s ascent was by far the most convincing of the two, despite its relatively low trading volume, thanks to gains made by two blue chips to offset the losses made by Access Bank and Unilever Ghana.

The roller coaster of a week for the Ghana bourse continued on Wednesday, November 10, with Tuesday’s growth in prices followed by another decline, as the benchmark kept dropping until MTN and Cal Bank kicked in to help it close at the day’s high.

As the trading session opened on Wednesday, 11 Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) equities participated in trading, ending with two gainers and two losers.

MTN Ghana (MTNGH) led the gainers’ list. MTNGH closed its trading day (Wednesday, November 10, 2021) at GHS1.29 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 1.6 percent gain over its previous closing price of GHS1.27. Next on the gainers’ list was Cal Bank Ghana (CAL). CAL closed its trading day (Wednesday, November 10, 2021) at GHS0.82 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 1.2 percent gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.81.

Losers on the Day

Wednesday’s bourse session proved to be a “bull trap”, in that despite starting with promising gains and with the benchmark climbing high above the 2,900-point mark during the day, a sell-off toward the end led it significantly lower than anticipated.

Access Bank was the biggest laggard with over 9 percent share price depreciation. Access closed its trading day (Wednesday, November 10, 2021) at GHS3.15 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 9.7 percent drop from its previous closing price of GHS3.49. Unilever (UNIL) Ghana completed the losers list, recording a 0.2 percent drop from its previous closing price of GHS5.90. UNIL closed its last trading day (Wednesday, November 10, 2021) at 5.89 GHS per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

At the end of Wednesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 670,672 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 699,053.74, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Tuesday, November 9), Wednesday’s data show 39 percent decline in volume and 55 percent decline in turnover.

CAL Bank recorded the highest volume of 370,130 traded shares. This was followed by MTN Ghana with 233,805 traded shares. Cocoa Processing Company and Access Bank Ghana on the other hand secured 46,700 and 8,880 traded shares respectively.

Benchmark Index

Regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) moved up by 18.37 points to close at 2,957.26, representing 0.63 percent. This led to a 1-week gain of 0.7 percent and a 4-week gain of 3.91 percent, with an overall year-to-date gain of 52.31 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI), on the other hand, decreased by 0.44 percent to settle at 2,073.46 points, making it a 1-week loss of 0.43 percent, a 4-week gain of 0.34 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 16.31 percent.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange stands at GHS 65.2 billion.