The year’s final trading week started off particularly quietly, with turnover declining and Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) benchmark Composite Indices remaining unchanged with two sessions left to the end of the year.

The Ghana Stock Exchange general index closed at 2,444.16 points, adding zero percent to previous day’s points. However, this led to a week-on-week loss of 0.22 percent, a month-on-month loss of 0.78 percent, and an overall year-to-date loss of 12.37 percent.

Then as well, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) also maintained its value at 2,053.05 points, leading to a week-on-we loss of 0.43 percent, a month-on-month loss of 1.15 percent, and a year-to-date loss of 4.59 percent.

Even so, sellers retained the upper hand and saw one blue chip stock gain ground, nonetheless without the ability to cause a change in the key performance indicators.

In all, 15 GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with only one gainer, namely NewGold ETF, with 2.74 percent share price appreciation, while the remaining fourteen listed equities remained unchanged.

NewGold ETF Emerges the Only Winner

NewGold ETF (GLD) closed its trading day (Wednesday, December 28, 2022) at GHS217.80 per share on the local bourse, recording a GHS5.80 gain over its previous closing price of GHS212.00. NewGold ETF began the year with a share price of GHS108.60 and has since gained 101 percent on that price valuation, ranking it third on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. However, investors are particularly concerned about GLD’s recent poor performance, having lost 18 percent of its value in the past four weeks.

NewGold ETF is the third most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Sep 28 – Dec 28, 2022). GLD has traded a total volume of 1.54 million shares valued at GHS 299 million over the period, with an average of 24,467 traded shares per session. A volume high of 545,125 was achieved on December 13, 2022, for the same period.

NewGold ETF is traded on the GSE under the ticker symbol “GLD”. The International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) of GSE:GLD is ZAE000060067. NewGold ETF is currently the 13th most valuable stock on the GSE with a market capitalization of GHS 632 million, which makes about 0.979% of the Ghana Stock Exchange equity market.

At the end of the trading session on the Ghanaian stock market, a total of 76,496 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 2,177,195.67, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, December 23), Wednesday’s data showed 87 percent decline in turnover.

GCB Bank emerged as the ticker with the highest volume of 43,947 traded shares on the day. It was followed by MTN Ghana with 18,234 traded shares, while NewGold ETF also garnered 9,110 traded shares and Ecobank Transnational secured 1,980 traded shares.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange is GHS 64.5 billion, same as the previous outing.

The two major market catalysts that have weighed on stocks throughout 2022 remain front and center in December- inflation and the rapid depreciation of the cedi.

As the Accra bourse is likely to end the year on the back foot, many investors will be banging on the renewed hope that the new year has to offer.