The Ghanaian equity market has placed its internal strength on display to start the week on Monday, December 6, as it consolidated and ended on a flat note, after spending successive days in the red zone.

The GSE market saw a quiet opening on the expected lines and traded flat in a narrow range in the first half of Monday’s trading session. The blue chip stocks stayed range-bound, and showed no directional bias till the market closed.

According to market report, eight GSE equities participated in trading. All the major blue chip stocks that participated in Monday’s trading session closed without a gain or a loss, albeit, with an improved market activity.

The market displayed some internal strength as the volume and value of traded stocks swelled up considerably.

At the end of Monday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 128,588 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 144,193.82, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Thursday, December 2), Monday’s data showed 146 percent improvement in volume and 16 percent improvement in turnover.

Market Performance

Despite the major stocks trading flat, the banking sector and telecommunication stocks led the market trading activities. Societe Generale Ghana recorded the highest volume of shares traded, it was followed closely by another banking sector stocks- Cal Bank and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, before being joined by MTN Ghana on the summit.

Societe Generale Ghana closed the session as a leader with the highest volume of 71,512 traded shares. CAL Bank also secured 19,883) traded shares whereas, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated recorded 16,600 traded shares. MTN Ghana manged to squeeze into the list of top traders by volume with 15,559 traded shares.

Benchmark Composite Indices

With regards to the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) did not also see any change, closing at the same mark as it opened at 2,842.07 points. This resulted in a 1-week loss of 0.61 percent. Similarly, on a month on month basis, the composite index recorded a 4-week loss of 3.05 percent, nonetheless a marginal gain of overall year-to-date of 0.49 percent.

In a similar vein, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) further maintained its value at 2,089.21 points, making it a 1-week gain of 0.52 percent, a 4-week gain of 0.49 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 17.19 percent.

In the intervening time, the market capitalization which captures the total market value of all outstanding shares, hence determining the worth of various companies listed on the local bourse also remained at GHS 64.2 billion.

Some strategists see the market heading into a volatile period in which there could be a deeper pullback.

However, other analysts also predict that there is going to be a rebound in stock prices as the week draws to a close, coupled with an improvement in investor confidence through the high demand in bargain stocks.

While it may seem like the stock market is going nowhere for days, it may be quietly winding itself up for a big climb.