The trading week kicked off on an optimistic note in the Ghanaian equity market, showcasing encouraging developments with both the Composite Index (GSE-CI) and the Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) making modest gains.

In total, a fewer number of equities took part in trade as the rest look on disinterested. At the of the session, out of the six GSE listed equities that participated in trading, only one equity emerged victorious, namely Standard Chartered Bank, with 0.07% share price appreciation.

Standard Chartered Bank Limited (SCB) closed its trading day (Monday, August 21, 2023) at GHS13.56 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording one pesewa gain over its previous closing price of GHS13.55.

However, Standard Chartered began the year with a share price of GHS20.16 but has since lost 32.7% off that price valuation, ranking it 35th on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

Standard Chartered Bank is the ninth most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (May 23 – Aug 21, 2023). SCB has traded a total volume of 176,576 shares valued at GHS 2.32 million over the period, with an average of 2,803 traded shares per session. A volume high of 85,000 was achieved on August 21 for the same period.

Standard Chartered Bank Limited is currently the sixth most valuable stock on the GSE with a market capitalization of GHS 1.83 billion, which makes about 2.5% of the Ghana Stock Exchange equity market.

Composite Index Improves

The gain made by Standard Chartered Bank lifted the benchmark Composite Index as it secured an increase of 0.12 points (0.004% to close at 3,061.80 points, representing a 1-week gain of 0.23%, a 4-week gain of 6.66%, and an overall year-to-date gain of 25.28%.

Moreover, the Financial Stocks Index also followed suit with a gain of 0.23 points (0.014%). Similarly, the Financial Stocks Index ended the day at 1,677.78 points, with a year-to-date (YTD) loss of 18.26%.

Unfortunately, the volume traded suffered a decline. At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 88,963 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 1,157,823.00, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, August 18), Monday’s data showed 69% decline in volume but 22% improvement in turnover.

The market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange, meanwhile remains the same, standing at GHS 73 billion.