The Ghanaian equities market caps off the second week of July with an impressive upward trend in trading activity after recording days of a choppy performance on the local bourse.

The level of trading activities as measured by volume and value traded by close of session on July 16, 2021 sharply rose by over 100 percent.

According to the market report, at the end of the last trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 1,628,210 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHc 1,932,622.20, were traded. This represents a massive improvement on the previous trading session on July 15, 2021. The previous session which ended with volume traded totaling 14,904 shares.

Meanwhile, in the aggregate, seven GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with disappointingly two losers, namely, Unilever Ghana (-9.88%) and MTN Ghana (-0.83%). There were no gainers.

However, the sectorial rally was led by Information and Communications Technology stocks with other sectors also supporting the upward move.
MTN Ghana stood tall leading the charge with more than 100 percent of volume and value traded.

Furthermore, MTN Ghana recorded the highest volume of 1.5 million traded shares, followed by CAL Bank (78,787), Unilever Ghana (18,555) and Societe Generale Ghana (4,034).

Moreover, MTNGH closed its last trading day (Friday, July 16, 2021) at GHc1.20 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 0.8% drop from its previous closing price of GHc1.21 . Conversely, MTNGH began the year with a share price of 0.64 GHS and has since gained 88% on that price valuation, ranking it first on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.
MTNGH has traded a total volume of 79.8 million shares valued at GHS 90.8 million over the period, with an average of 1.21 million traded shares per session.

In similar vein, UNIL also closed its last Friday trading day at GHc2.19 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a 9.9% drop from its previous closing price of GHc 2.43. UNIL began the year with a share price of GHc8.29 but has since lost 74% 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 UNIL has lost 29% of the stock’s value from June 18th to date.

Regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) dropped 13.18 (-0.5%) points to close at 2,648.31 points, representing a 1-week loss of 0.16%, a 4-week gain of 0.09%, and an overall year-to-date gain of 36.4%.
The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) maintained its value at 1,890.61 points, making it a 4-week gain of 0.41%, and a year-to-date gain of 6.05%.

In addition, total market capitalization dipped from GHc 61.66 billion to settle at GHc 61.55 billion.

According to analysts, the demand for bargain stocks also contributed to the gradual pick up in market performance. The bargain stocks are shares trading at a lower price than a company’s intrinsic value or performance,