Ghana Stock Market benchmark indices closed on a negative note on Wednesday, erasing all gains after recording fresh highs during the early trade.

The local bourse which rallied ahead during the opening trade session, slipped into red, after being dragged by profit-booking GCB Bank PLC stocks in the banking and financial sector. The indices plunged further during closing hours ahead of the announcement of the Monetary Policy Rate by the Bank of Ghana MPC in the ongoing Monetary Policy Committee Meeting (MPC) which started yesterday, March 16, 2022.

The Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index (GSE-CI) continued on Wednesday on its downward path, which had started on Tuesday, March 16, 2022, with only one major stock posting a moderate decline, although most sectors were not affected as predicted.

GCB Bank PLC Shares Decline

The breadth of the market continued to remain negative with no stocks advancing. In all, fifteen (15) GSE listed equities participated in trading. GCB Bank emerged as the only laggard on the day with 0.19 percent share price depreciation, while the remaining 14 equities traded flat.

GCB closed its trading day (Wednesday, March 16, 2022) at GHS5.19 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange, recording a 1 pesewa drop from its previous closing price of GHS5.20. Meanwhile, GCB began the year with a share price of GHS5.24 but has since lost 0.95 percent off that price valuation, ranking it 31st on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

That notwithstanding, GCB Bank is the ninth most traded stock on the local bourse over the past three months (Dec 13, 2021 – Mar 16, 2022). GCB has traded a total volume of 623,495 shares valued at GHS 3.26 million over the period, with an average of 9,897 traded shares per session. A volume high of 178,419 was achieved on February 2, 2022 for the same period.

Index Points Downward

The loss in financial and banking sector pressurized the general indices southward. The benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) dropped 15.42 (-0.56%) points to close at 2,738.95 points. However, this led to a week on week gain of 0.03 percent and a month on month gain of 1.6 percent, but an overall year-to-date loss of 1.81 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI), on the other hand, closed at 2,167.87 points, making it a week on week gain of 1.74 percent, a month on month gain of 2.37 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 0.74 percent.

At the end of Wednesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange, a total of 263,155 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 1,460,858.51, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Tuesday, March 15), Wednesday’s data showed 63 percent decline in turnover.

Ecobank Ghana recorded the highest volume of 182,304 traded shares, followed by Ecobank Transnational with 23,295 traded shares. SIC Insurance Company also secured 14,970 traded shares, while MTN Ghana managed to trade 14,690 volume of traded shares.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange remained at GHS 64 billion.

Meanwhile, investors will keenly be watching out for the actions the MPC will take regarding key policy rates as they wrap up their ongoing meeting.