The latest round of market upheaval since the announcement of the electronic transactions levy by the Finance Minister of Ghana has left many investors of the telecommunication giants, MTN Ghana, pondering over their next move with MTN Ghana tumbling once more with more than 1.5 percent depreciation of its share price.

The E-levy driven volatility in the Ghanaian stock market since November 2021, has never been followed by any recovery till date with the major indices swimming southward.

As the bears held sway on Tuesday, December 7, 2021, seven GSE equities participated in trading, ending with one loser, namely MTN Ghana, with 1.69 percent share price depreciation.

MTN Ghana closed its trading day at GH¢1.16 per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a GH¢0.02 drop from its previous closing price of GH¢1.18. For the past one week, MTN Ghana has cumulatively lost 3.33 percent of its share value and a further 11 percent lost of its value in the past four weeks. This has greatly affected the company’s standing on the Ghana Stock Exchange, as it now ranks sixth on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

GSE Benchmark Index Nosedived

The GSE benchmark index also plummeted by 0.83 percent to close at 2,818.59 points while market capitalization also declined by GH¢200 million to settle at GH¢64 billion from GH¢64.2 billion previously recorded on Monday, as a result of pressured sell-offs in MTN Ghana.

The decline in the benchmark composite index culminated to a week on week loss of 1.43 percent and a 4-week loss of 5.03 percent, while the market year to date return moderated to 45.17 percent.

The GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) which measures financial sector stocks and insurance maintained its value at 2,089.21 points on three consecutive sessions, making it a one week gain of 0.52 percent, a month on month gain of 0.38 percent, and a year-to-date gain of 17.19 percent.

On the other hand, the level of trading activity improved as total volume and value traded rose significantly. At the end of Tuesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 8,223,945 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 9,542,503.13, were traded.

Comparatively, at the end of Monday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 128,588 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 144,193.82, were traded. This shows more than 1000 percentage increase in both volume and value traded.

Top Traded Stocks by Volume

Despite losing on the day, MTN Ghana led the chart of top traded stocks by volume on GSE by close of trading session.

According to market report, MTN Ghana recorded the highest volume of 8.21 million traded shares. This was followed by Ghana Oil Company with 9,157 traded shares. Ecobank Transnational also managed to secure 3,200 traded shares and SIC Insurance Company registered 120 volume of shares traded.

With volatility in the market increasing by the day ahead of next year’s implementation of the e-levy, investors are under enormous pressure and dilemma as to whether to sell-off their stocks and buy back when the market picks up or to exit the market completely.