A late buying spree by investors of Access Bank PLC saved the day for the benchmark at the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) on Thursday after a weak effort to follow the growth posted by other markets in the sub region nearly failed to keep the main index in the green.

The trading session ended with Access Bank PLC emerging the only gainer out of the fourteen (14) listed equities that participated in trading. Access Bank PLC recorded an impressive 9.61 percent share price appreciation, while other top guns traded flat with no gain or loss in share price.

Access Bank PLC closed its trading day (Thursday, June 30, 2022) at GHS2.51 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording 22 pesewas gain over its previous closing price of GHS2.29. However, it is significant to know that Access Bank Ghana PLC began the year with a share price of GHS3.15 but has since lost 20.3 percent off that price valuation, ranking it 36th on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

That notwithstanding, shareholders’ fears may be allayed by the 10 percent increase of Access Bank PLC share price since June 2, 2022 which is second best on GSE.

Thursday’s performance catapulted Access Bank Ghana to the 20th position as the 20th most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Mar 30 – Jun 30, 2022). Access Bank PLC has traded a total volume of 19,692 shares valued at GHS 43,221 over the period, with an average of 313 traded shares per session. A volume high of 11,525 was achieved on April 5, 2022 for the same period.

Performance of GSE Market Indices

Regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up 3.31 (0.13%) points to close at 2,545.48 points, representing a week on week gain of 1.52 percent, a month on month loss of 0.22 percent, and an overall year-to-date loss of 8.74 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) also increased by 0.31 percent courtesy of the gains made by Access Bank PLC to reach 2,176.97 points, making it a week on week gain of 0.31 percent, a further month on month loss of 0.4 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 1.17 percent.

At the end of Thursday’s trading session on the local bourse, a total of 98,267 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 152,136.40, were traded.

MTN Ghana recorded the highest volume of 85,471 traded shares. This was followed by Total Petroleum Ghana with 5,430 total volume of shares traded, while Standard Chartered Bank on the other hand registered 2,427 traded shares and Produce Buying Company also coming in with 1,418 traded shares.

The market capitalization which represents the total value of a company’s shares of stock and calculated by multiplying the price of a stock by its total number of outstanding shares has seen a tremendous jump in its value throughout the week by over GHC 3 billion. The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange is GHS 64.8 billion, jumping from GHS 61 billion that was previously recorded.