The 91-day and 182-day government securities failed to sustain last week’s upward movement closing the week under review marginally lower.

The weekly 91-day instrument closed with the average yield rate across the curve lessening slightly by 0.01 basis point to close at 12.45 percent from 12.46 percent the previous week. Consequently, the year to date rate for the three month bill also trended downward. It culminated a total of 11.70 per cent lost in year-to-date.

Moreover, the yield on the 182-day instrument also dipped by 0.22 percent. The rate fell from 13.22 percent to end the week with 13.20 percent. In addition, the year-to-date yielding rate of the six month instrument also declined by 6.75 percent. On the other hand, the average yields across medium-term and long-term maturities remained flat at 16.10 percent. Despite a year to date lost of 6.76 percent.

However, rates on the secondary bond market across medium-term and long-term maturities maintained marginal gains on the long-term maturities as yields narrowed with coupon rates. The coupon rate rose positively from 19.1 percent to 19.2 per cent.

Equities Market

The sum of the weekly activities on the Ghana Stock Exchange saw the GSE Composite Index inched up by 0.50% this week to close at 2,753.55 points. Similarly, the year to date also inched up by 41.8 percent. Meanwhile, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) at last trading session maintained its value at 1,929.78 points, making it a 1-week gain of 0.82%, a 4-week gain of 0.96%, and a year-to-date gain of 8.25%.

Trading activities was not exciting with lower volumes and value recorded for the period of last week. At the end of the last weekday (September 3) of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 233,928 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 360,157.46, were traded.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange is GHS 62.9 billion.

Meanwhile, Fan Milk Ghana Limited registered the biggest price increase of 17.86 percent in the past week. Its current share price on the GSE stands at GH¢ 1.65. There were however no losers last week

Fan Milk began the year with a share price of GH¢1.08 and has since gained 52.8% on that price valuation, ranking it third on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders can be optimistic about FML knowing the stock has accrued 18% over the past four-week period—,second best on GSE.

Fan Milk is the 17th most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Jun 7 – Sep 3, 2021). FML has traded a total volume of 95,254 shares valued at GH¢ 135,392 over the period, with an average of 1,512 traded shares per session. A volume high of 46,733 was achieved on July 23rd for the same period.

Commodities Market

Oil prices continued to rise this week, rebounding on optimism about global economic growth despite the coronavirus pandemic. Oil price stood at 72.70 US$ per barrel. It has gained a week on week of 0.12 percent over the past week.

Gold was also selling at 1,828.41 US$/TOZ in the week under review. It has since gained week on week of 0.67 percent.

Moreover, cocoa also inched up by 2.47 percent in the past week to close at 1,786.00 GBP per tonnes. Its year to day (YTD) also increases by 3.72 percent.