It was a remarkable day for the financial sector stocks as investors appetite for banking stocks on the trading floor of Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) lifted the benchmark composite index.

In all, 18 GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with three gainers and just one loser. Access Bank Ghana led the gainers with 9.93% share price appreciation closing at GHS 3.10 per share, followed by Standard Chartered Bank (+9.83%) and Societe Generale Ghana (+9.72%). The only equity that lost value on the day was NewGold ETF (-2.69%).

ACCESS closed its trading day at 3.10 GHS per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 28 pesewa gain over its previous closing price of GHS2.82. However, Access began the year with a share price of 4.01 GHS but has since lost 22.7% off that price valuation, ranking it 36th on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

Access Bank Ghana is currently the 10th most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Jun 16 – Sep 14, 2023). ACCESS has traded a total volume of 214,329 shares valued at GHS 683,759 over the period, with an average of 3,402 traded shares per session.

The second gainer was Standard Chartered Bank Ghana PLC (SCB). SCB closed its trading day at GHS19.00 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a GH1.70 gain over its previous closing price of GHS17.30. Standard Chartered also began the year with a share price of GHS20.16 but has since lost 5.75% off that price valuation, ranking it 31st on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders’ fears may be allayed by the 40% increase of SCB share price since August 17, which is third best on GSE.

The final gainer on the day was Societe Generale Ghana Ltd. (SOGEGH). SOGEGH closed the session at GHS1.58 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 14 pesewa gain over its previous closing price of GHS1.44. Societe Generale began the year with a share price of GHS1.00 and has since gained 58% on that price valuation, ranking it sixth on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. However, shareholders can be optimistic about SOGEGH knowing the stock has accrued an outstanding 76% over the past four-week period alone—second best on GSE.

Activity Level Improves

Analysis of the activity level showed that the total traded volume of stocks witnessed 69% improvement and 65% improvement in turnover. In the end, a total of 684,079 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 2,256,802.52, were traded.

Regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) increased by 34.68 (1.11%) points to close at 3,148.47 points, representing a week-on-week gain of 2.56%, a month-on-month gain of 2.68%, and an overall year-to-date gain of 28.83%.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) also increased by 3.66% to reach 1,855.55 points, making it a week-on-week gain of 5.15%, a month-on-month gain of 10.61%, and a year-to-date loss of 9.6%. As a result of Thursday’s performance, market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange also jumped to GHS 73.9 billion.

Analysts, meanwhile, indicated that they expect the positive performance on the local bourse to continue into the final day of the week as investors hunt for bargains amid improved sentiment. Moreover, investor sentiment, as measured by market breadth also improved.