A slow start to the week’s first bourse session at Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) was followed by a buying spree that sent Cal Bank stocks higher and gave the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite benchmark gains in excess of over 2 points.
After the run of profit-taking last week that saw investors gained traction in those trading sessions, the banking stocks drove a positive rally on the GSE on the first week-day of trading on the floor of the Exchange.
In total, 12 GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with only one gainer, namely CAL Bank, with 4.65% share price appreciation, while eleven (11) equities remained unchanged.
Cal Bank closed its trading day (Monday, April 25, 2022) at GHS0.90 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 4 pesewas gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.86. Meanwhile, Cal Bank began the year with a share price of GHS0.87 and has since gained 3.45 per cent on that price valuation, ranking it seventh on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders can be optimistic about Cal Bank knowing the stock has accrued 6 per cent over the past four-week period—fourth best on GSE.
Moreover, CAL Bank is the third most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Jan 24 – Apr 25, 2022). Cal Bank has traded a total volume of 9.64 million shares valued at GHS 8.04 million over the period, with an average of 152,960 traded shares per session. A volume high of 2 million was achieved on February 2, for the same period.
Benchmark Index Appreciates
In line with expectations for some of the major banking heavyweights post Easter season, the heavy buying interests in Cal Bank has seen a push in the General share index on Monday with the banking sector stocks trading on a bullish run, largely due to bargain hunting in the banking stocks.
The benchmark index at the Ghana Stock Exchange ended the day just a whisker away from 2,700 points on Monday, offsetting some of the losses it has suffered throughout last week.
The benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up by 2.40 points to close at 2,699.07 points, representing 0.09 per cent gain. The gain further led to a week on week gain of 0.06 per cent, but a loss of 1.57 per cent on month on month basis, and an overall year-to-date loss of 3.24 per cent.
Unsurprisingly, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) also increased by 0.2 per cent to reach 2,224.01 points, making it a week on week gain of 0.14 per cent, a month on month gain of 2.32 per cent, and a year-to-date gain of 3.35 per cent.
Trading Activity Improves
At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 47,282 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 37,465.67, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, April 22), Monday’s data showed 104 per cent improvement in volume and 5 per cent improvement in turnover.
CAL Bank recorded the highest volume of 20,064 traded shares, followed by Ecobank Transnational (14,328), MTN Ghana (9,432) and Ghana Oil Company (2,476).
The market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange also improved by GHC 100 million to settle at GHS 64.1 billion.
