The Ghanaian Equities market halted its corrective decline on Monday, May 9, 2022 as benchmark indices staged a strong pullback but unable to cross the line, ending on a flat base.

The market opened on a positive note with the recent commencement of the e-levy in mind. It soon nosedived into the red zone as the stocks looked destined to end in the red zone. However, it managed to crawl into the flatline and remained glued until the bell rang for an end to the session.

At the end of the trading day, sixteen (16) GSE equities participated in trading. There were no gainers nor losers, meaning that the market ended the day as it started.

Despite taking a negative turn on last week day of last week, the Ghana Stock Exchange Index maintained its negative traction with 0.2 percent week on week loss as the market witnessed some significant sell-off activity in the banking sector that weighed on the index performance. Meanwhile, stocks such as Cal Bank, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated and Standard Chartered contributed to the collective decline of the financial index.

On the other hand, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) did not see any change, closing at the same mark as it opened at 2,209.24 points. As a result, this led to a month on month loss of 0.18 percent, and an overall year-to-date loss of 3.53 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) maintained its value at 2,117.65 points, making it a week on week loss of 0.2 percent, a month on month loss of 0.4 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 2.67 percent.

Overall, the level of trading activities across the market ended in the red as the total value and volume traded during the first week day declined by 69 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

Volume of Shares Traded

At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 28,101 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 31,189.05, were traded.

Leading the charts for the most traded sector by volume was the banking sector with CAL Bank recording the highest volume of 21,076 traded shares. This was followed by the telecommunication sector, MTN Ghana recording 5,009 traded shares. Another banking stocks followed with Ecobank Ghana securing 528 traded shares while Produce Buying Company also managed 300.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange stands at GHS 63.9 billion.

Analysts described the recent trading activities as aggressive profit-taking, coupled with concerns over macroeconomic conditions such as: inflation, foreign exchange volatility, fiscal deficit, and the implementation of E-levy.

Going into the rest of the new week, analysts expect mixed sentiment, amid cherry-picking activities to see off the new week.