After starting the week on a positive note, Ghana stock market on August 11, failed to hold on to the momentum and closed flat.
The stock market has made little to no movement for the second day running.
At the close of Wednesday’s trading, the market recorded zero price movement as the benchmark index also maintained its points to close at 2,743.94 points.
However, the flat performance did not affect the year-to-date (YTD) return as the YTD inched up by +802.35 points representing 41.32 per cent.
Meanwhile, the market capitalisation also maintained its performance by ending the day with GHc62.7 billion. Repeating the previous market value.
Furthermore, on the sectoral front, trading was seen in metals, telecommunication, oil & gas and financial stocks.
However, despite the market trading flat, trading activity levels surged marginally on the local bourse. At the end of Wednesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 150,728 shares, corresponding to a market value of GHc 28,582.64, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Tuesday, August 10), Wednesday’s data show 3 per cent improvement in volume but 85 per cent decline in turnover.
In the aggregate, four GSE equities participated in trading as there were no gainers nor losers. Surprisingly, Aluworks led the charge after missing out on the highest volume traders list for some time now. Aluworks recorded the highest volume of 142,740 traded shares. It is worth noting that, since the turn of the year, 2021, this is the highest volume recorded by Aluworks. This was followed by MTN Ghana with 7,269 traded shares. Meanwhile, MTN Ghana has led majority of the trading sessions in the week. However, Ecobank Ghana and CAL Bank just managed a paltry 704 shares and 15 traded shares respectively.
Similarly, regarding the performance of GSE market indices, the benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) did not see any change, closing at the same mark as it opened at 2,743.94 points. This represents a 1-week gain of 0.57 per cent and a 4-week gain of 3.44 per cent, and an overall year-to-date gain of 41.32 per cent.
In addition, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) which records the value of all financial stocks also maintained its value at 1,909.05 points, making a 1-week gain of 1 per cent, a 4-week gain of 0.98 per cent, and a year-to-date gain of 7.08 per cent.
However, according to some analysts, sentiments were dampened in the Ghanaian equities market owing to profit-takings on top stocks that posted their biggest wins in the previous weeks, forcing the local bourse to retreat to a bearish stance on the third trading day of the week.
This offered strong indications that the market is on the threshold of consolidation, where market investors will see range bound movements till the end of the week to make a move.
Meanwhile, overall, the absence of price volatility in the last two days may indicate that bears are holding the command and declines are being bought.
However, experts further said that these performances may give investors a good opportunity to accumulate quality stocks in flat.
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