The battle between sellers and buyers during Monday’s bourse session in Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) concluded with a marginal win for the buyers, as the majority of stocks heeded the trend set by banking stocks and closed in the green again.

Analysts are of the view that the recent increase in interest rates may shift some interest to bond markets, but stocks are also affected, hence the strong showing of some banks across the market recently.

The gains made by the financial sector stocks pushed the general benchmark index northward. In total, six GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with two gainers and no losers. The two gainers were SIC Insurance Company (+4.76%) and CAL Bank (+1.18%).

SIC closed its trading day (Monday, March 28, 2022) at GHS0.22 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 4.8 per cent gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.21. SIC began the year with a share price of GHS0.08 and has since gained 175 per cent on that price valuation, ranking it first on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders can be optimistic about SIC knowing the stock has accrued an outstanding 57 per cent over the past four-week period alone.

Similarly, Cal Bank also closed its trading day at GHS0.86 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 1.2 per cent gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.85. CAL began the year with a share price of 0.87 GHS but has since lost 1.15% off that price valuation, ranking it 31st on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

CAL Bank is the third most traded stock on the local bourse over the past three months (Dec 23, 2021 – Mar 28, 2022). CAL has traded a total volume of 8.34 million shares valued at GHS 6.91 million over the period, with an average of 132,376 traded shares per session. A volume high of 2 million was achieved on February 2 for the same period.

Composite Index Stays in Green

The Index responded to the gains by SIC Insurance Company PLC and Cal Bank PLC by adding to its points. The benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up by 0.79 (0.03%) points to close at 2,742.85 points, representing a week on week gain of 0.13 percent, a 4-week gain of 1.8 per cent, but an overall year-to-date loss of 1.67 per cent.

Similarly, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) also increased by 0.07 per cent to reach 2,174.96 points, making it a week on week gain of 0.3 per cent, a 4-week gain of 2.82 per cent, and a year-to-date gain of 1.07 per cent.

Trading Activity Goes Down

Despite the uptick in the market index, the bourse witnessed a reduced activity level. At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 180,595 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 61,916.64, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, March 25), Monday’s data showed 60 per cent decline in volume and a further 87 per cent decline in turnover.

SIC Insurance Company recorded the highest volume of 88,771 traded shares, followed by Ecobank Transnational with 61,131 traded shares. MTN Ghana appeared in third with 15,709 traded shares and CAL Bank also managed 12,574 traded shares.