The Ghana stock market lost most of its early gains on Monday but still managed to end the day in the green thanks to a strong performance by the banking and consumer goods sector.

At the close of the trading session, top gainers on the Ghanaian equities market witnessed positive price movements which resulted in price advancements in Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) and Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL).

Rising stocks were more than double the number of losers in previous trading session, but the big highlight was that the session ended with no losers.

In the aggregate, Sixteen (16) GSE listed equities participated in trading, ending with two gainers. The two gainers were Ecobank Transnational (+6.67%) and Guinness Ghana Breweries (+4.72%).

Ecobank Transnational closed its trading day (Monday, March 14, 2022) at GH¢0.16 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a pesewa gain over its previous closing price of GHS0.15. However, Ecobank began the year with a share price of GHS0.14 and has since gained 14.3 percent on that price valuation, ranking it fifth on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. Shareholders can be optimistic about ETI knowing the stock has accrued 23 percent over the past four-week period alone- second best on GSE.

Similarly, Guinness Ghana Breweries (GGBL) also made gains for the first time this month. GGBL closed its trading day at GHS2.22 per share on the Accra bourse, recording a GHS0.10 gain over its previous closing price of GHS2.12. However, it is worth noting that Ghana Breweries began the year with a share price of GHS1.80 and has since gained 23.3% on that price valuation, ranking it second on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance. GGBL has accrued 6% over the past four-week period- fourth best on GSE. Guinness Ghana Breweries is the fourth most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Dec 9, 2021 – Mar 14, 2022). GGBL has traded a total volume of 3.85 million shares valued at GHS 8.2 million over the period, with an average of 61,060 traded shares per session. A volume high of 1.5 million was achieved on March 14th for the same period.

Trading Session Registers Improvement in Activities

At the end of the first weekday of trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange, a total of 1,979,008 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHS 4,184,532.20, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Friday, March 11), Monday’s data showed 108 percent improvement in volume and a further 201 percent improvement in turnover.

In dissecting the day’s event, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) closed at 2,754.37 points, adding 10.12 (0.37%) points to Friday’s points. Meanwhile, the advancement in points led to a week on week gain of 0.87 percent and a month on month gain of 0.88 percent. However, it recorded an overall year-to-date loss of 1.25%.

The banks index also advanced by 0.61 percent, courtesy to the gains made by ETI to reach 2,154.82 points, making it a 1-week gain of 1.79 percent, a 4-week gain of 1.76 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 0.14 percent.

The current market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange stands at GHS 64 billion.

However, looking at this performance, it can be seen that investor sentiments have slightly been reinforced, while some speculators have decided to pull back their aggressive stance.