The Ghana Stock Exchange witnessed a surge in market capitalization in last trading session on Tuesday, September 7, by 0.23 percent to settle at GH¢63.01 billion, showing signs of a gradual pickup in stock market activities.

The market capitalization that previously stood at GH¢62.9 billion has since gained over GH¢14 million on that value.

Meanwhile, market cap measures how much a company is worth as determined by the stock market, hence the total market value of all outstanding shares. Moreover, analysts also hold that market cap shows the size of a company and remains a basic determinant of various characteristics in which investors are interested, including risk.

Similarly, the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index (GSE-CI) at the end of Tuesday’s trading session posted a year-to-date (YTD) return of 42.17 percentage points on stock prices for investors.

Moreover, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up by 1.35 points, representing 0.05 percent to close at 2,760.41 points. This resulted in a 1-week gain of 0.37 percent, and a 4-week gain of 0.6 percent. Comparatively, the composite index for the previous trading session stood at 2,759.06 points.

In the same vein, the GSE Financial Stock index which tracks only financial sector stocks, mainly in the banking and insurance industry also inched up by 0.13 percent to reach 1,932.54 points. Making it a 1-week gain of 0.17 percent and a 4-week gain of 1.23 percent. It thus, returned 8.4 percent gain from the start of the year-to-date to investors.

A breakdown of trading activity suggests a total of 42,010 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 128,842.12, were traded at the end of Tuesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange.

However, compared with the previous GSE trading day (Monday, September 6, 2021), Tuesday’s data show 68 percent decline in volume and 47 percent decline in turnover.

Market Performance

In total, seven GSE equities participated in trading, ending with only one gainer, namely Societe Generale Ghana (SOGEGH), with 2.1 percent share price appreciation.

SOGEGH closed its last trading day (Tuesday, September 7, 2021) at GH¢0.97 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange, recording a 2.1 percent gain over its previous closing price of GH¢0.95.
However, Societe Generale began the year with a share price of GH¢0.64 and has since gained 51.6 percent on that price valuation.

Notwithstanding, stocks from the Information and Communications Technology, financial sectors continue to perform well on the stock market.

Market Volume

On the volume front, GCB Bank emerged as the volume leader in last trading session. It recorded the highest volume of 20,002 traded shares. This was followed by MTN Ghana with 9,113 traded shares. More so, the banking sector counter was also led by Societe Generale Ghana and Ecobank Transnational with 5,400 and 4,906 traded shares respectively.

However, market watchers noted that the demand for bargain stocks, that is, shares trading at a lower price than a company’s intrinsic value or performance, contributed to the gradual pick up in market performance.