The month has not started well for the Ghana Stock Market as both the market capitalization and the volume of activities declined considerably on the first day of the week, Monday August 1, 2022.

According to the GSE market summary report, the GSE market capitalization plummeted by GH¢300 million, ending the day at GH¢63.1 billion. Previously, the market capitalization stood at GH¢63.4 billion.

Market cap measures how much a company is worth as determined by the stock market, hence the total market value of all outstanding shares. Analysts also hold that market cap shows the size of a company and remains a basic determinant of various characteristics in which investors are interested, including risk.

The dip in market capitalization also affected major indices on the market. The Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index (GSE-CI), a key performance indicator of stocks on the local bourse, has recorded a year-on-year decline of about 13.07 percent in its growth. The benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) also pared by 94.12 points to close at 2,424.74 points. This equates to a decline of 3.74 per cent, representing a week on week loss of 0.65 per cent, and a further month on month loss of 4.74 per cent.

Overall, 15 GSE listed equities participated in trading on the first day of the month. The session ended with three gainers and three losers. Access Bank Ghana led the gainers with 7.84 percent share price appreciation closing at GHS 2.75 per share.

This was followed by NewGold ETF (+1.35%). NewGold ETF continued it’s gaining streak by appreciating by GH¢2.04 to close at GHS152.80 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) over its previous closing price of GHS150.76.

CAL Bank completed the gainers list with 1.35 percent share price appreciation. CAL closed its last trading day (Monday, August 1, 2022) at GHS0.75 per share on the local bourse, recording one pesewa gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.74.

On the losing side, Societe Generale Ghana came out last with an end-of-day price depreciation of 9.43 percent at GHS 0.96 per share, this was followed by MTN Ghana (-8.79%) and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (-6.25%).

Financial Market Index

The gains recorded by the financial sector blue chips such as Cal bank and Access Bank was not enough to prevent the financial index from declining as loses from other financial sector stocks such as Societe Generale and Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, unfortunately depleted the gains made and dragged the index to the south.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) declined by 0.87% to 2,085.35 points, making it a 1-week loss of 1.43%, a 4-week loss of 4.21%, and a year-to-date loss of 3.09%.

MTN Ghana recorded the highest volume of 1.06 million traded shares, followed by Societe Generale Ghana (12,991), Ecobank Transnational (11,376) and Access Bank Ghana (8,805).

At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 1,102,244 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 934,374.85, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, July 29), today’s data shows 68% decline in turnover.

According to experts, the decline in the key performance indicators of stocks on the local bourse can be attributed to investors minimizing their exposure to risk from the adverse economic conditions in the country.