Thursday’s bullish performance extended to the last day of week, Friday, August 20, 2021, in the Ghanaian equities market.

A strong buying interests in Unilever Ghana and MTN Ghana drove the market capitalization to GHc6.8 billion. The market cap in the previous trading session, August 19, stood at GHc6.7 billion. Thus, gaining GHc100 million in the process.

Moreover, across the various sectors, performance was bullish as two indices gained while the financial sector index closed flat. Leading the gainers’ table was the consumer goods index, which advanced by 8.3 per cent due to buying interest in Unilever Ghana.

However, the level of trading activity was mixed. The volume traded declined by over 70 per cent while the value traded rose marginally by 5 percent.

At the end of the last weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 204,370 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHc 350,059.42, were traded. Compared to the previous GSE trading day (Thursday, August 19), Friday’s data show 72 per cent decline in volume and a further 78 per cent decline in turnover.

In the aggregate, six GSE equities participated in trading, ending with only one gainer, namely Unilever Ghana, with 9.86 per cent share price appreciation.

Unilever Ghana Continues Gaining streak

Unilever Ghana (UNIL) closed its last trading day (Friday, August 20, 2021) at GHc4.68 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange, recording about a 9.9% gain over its previous closing price of GHc4.26.

However, Unilever began the year with a share price of GHc8.29 but has since lost 43.6 percent off that price valuation, ranking it 37th on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. That notwithstanding, shareholders’ fears may be allayed by the 134% increase of UNIL share price since July 22 to date, which is so far, best on GSE.

Trade by Volume

In the intervening time, MTN Ghana led the charge of volume of shares traded. It recorded the highest volume of 176,382 traded shares as at the close of last trading session. It was followed by Unilever Ghana with 27,000. Also, Societe Generale Ghana led the banking counter with 396 total shares traded. Ghana Oil Company also followed with 230 volume of shares traded.

Regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up 2.5 points, representing 0.09 percent to close at 2,754.92 points. This presents a 1-week gain of 0.39 percent and a 4-week gain of 5 per cent.

In similar vein, the upward trend of the composite index led to an overall year-to-date gain of 41.89 per cent.

Additionally, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) maintained its value at 1,909.91 points, making it a 1-week gain of 0.02 per cent. This leads to a 4-week gain of 1.02 per cent, and a year-to-date gain of 7.13 per cent.

However, investor sentiment in the market at the close of last trading day was strengthened as the demand for bargain stocks soar.