The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) proceeded smoothly on Thursday with sessions of mixed performances which caused its benchmark index to continue on its southbound course which it registered in most days of the trading week as all important indices keep looking down for the week.

A cursory look at the GSE market indices, showed that the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) pared 2.58 points to close at 2,402.51 points, representing a decline of 0.11 percent. However, the decline in the composite index translated to a week-on-week gain of 0.04 percent, but a month-on-month loss of 1.49 percent, and an overall year-to-date loss of 1.69 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) on the other hand also decreased by 0.27 percent to narrowly miss the 2,000 points mark by settling at 1,999.91 points, making it a week-on-week loss of 0.9 percent, a 4-week loss of 2.31 percent, and a year-to-date loss of 2.57 percent.

Losers and Gainers

In the aggregate, 14 GSE listed equities participated in Thursday’s trading, ending with only one gainer, namely TotalEnergies Marketing Ghana, with 0.99% share price appreciation and also one loser, namely CAL Bank (-8.93%).

TotalEnergies Marketing Ghana (TOTAL) closed its trading day (Thursday, February 9, 2023) at GHS4.10 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange, recording a GHS0.04 gain over its previous closing price of GHS4.06.

However, TotalEnergies began the year with a share price of GHS4.00 and has since gained 2.5% on that price valuation, ranking it third on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

When it comes to the volume of shares traded, TotalEnergies Marketing Ghana is the seventh most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Nov 8, 2022 – Feb 9, 2023). TOTAL has traded a total volume of 392,421 shares valued at GHS 1.57 million over the period, with an average of 6,229 traded shares per session. A volume high of 229,575 was achieved on December 23, 2022 for the same period.

On the flip side, the only loser on the day came from the banking sector. CAL Bank Limited, previously known as Continental Acceptance Limited, and later CAL Merchant Bank, closed its trading day at GHS0.51 per share on the Accra bourse, 5 pesewas drop from its previous closing price of GHS0.56.

Meanwhile, CAL began the year with a share price of GHS0.65 but has since lost 21.5 percent off that price valuation, ranking it 37th on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders’ worries are compounded by the fact that CAL has lost 15% of the stock’s value from January 12, 2023 to date.

CAL Bank is the sixth most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Nov 8, 2022 – Feb 9, 2023). CAL has traded a total volume of 527,705 shares valued at GHS 334,363 over the period, with an average of 8,376 traded shares per session. A volume high of 137,027 was achieved on January 11, 2023 for the same period.

Trading Volumes and Values

At the end of Thursday’s trading session, a total of 33,727 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 38,720.26, were traded.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange is GHS 64.2 billion. MTN Ghana recorded the highest volume of 13,812 traded shares, followed by CAL Bank (12,052), Unilever Ghana (5,791) and TotalEnergies Marketing Ghana (1,000).

Unfortunately, the market capitalization is gradually eroding as it plummeted in its latest outing by about GHS100 million to settle at GHS 64.2 billion from GHS 64.3 billion.