SIC Insurance Company which was the only insurance and banking sector stock to record gains on Wednesday’s trading day, single-handedly brought the main index higher as majority of stocks across the board ended up on the flat line.

In what could be seen as a session of two halves, the benchmark of the local bourse reversed its two day losses to end up with notable gains at the end of the trading session and subsequently edged ever closer to the major psychological milestone of 2,700 points. Buyers on the trading day focused on a wide range of blue chips, which helped the index seal another day of growth, on significant trading volume too.

The general benchmark GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) inched up marginally by 0.19 points to moderate at 2,696.22 points. This represents 0.01 percent point increment. Meanwhile, the gains by the composite index translated into a week on week gain of 0.01 percent, but a month on month loss of 3.06 percent, and an overall year-to-date loss of 3.34 percent.

In similar fashion, the GSE Financial Stocks Index (GSE-FSI) which measures the banking sector stocks and insurance, also increased by 0.02 percent to reach 2,118.55 points. This led to a week on week gain of 0.03 percent, a 4-week loss of 1.65 percent, and a year-to-date loss of 1.55 percent.

SIC Insurance Company Gains Yet Again

In total, twelve (12) GSE equities participated in trading. Only one stock recorded a gain, namely SIC Insurance Company PLC, while eleven (11) others remained unchanged.

SIC Insurance Company ended the trading day with 9.09 percent share price appreciation. SIC closed its trading day (Wednesday, February 23, 2022) at 0.12 GHS per share on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), recording a GH¢0.01 gain over its previous closing price of GH¢0.11 after recording a similar gain previously (February 22, 2022). However, SIC began the year with a share price of GH¢0.08 and has since gained about 50 percent on that price valuation, ranking it first on the GSE in terms of year-to-date performance.

SIC Insurance Company is the second most traded stock on the Ghana Stock Exchange over the past three months (Nov 22, 2021 – Feb 23, 2022). SIC has traded a total volume of 7.15 million shares valued at GHS 766,579 over the period, with an average of 113,505 traded shares per session. A volume high of 3 million was achieved on February 23, for the same period.

Improvement in Market Activity

At the end of Wednesday’s trading session on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), a total of 3,192,585 shares, corresponding to a market value of GH¢ 725,353.36, were traded. Compared with the previous GSE trading day (Tuesday, February 22), Wednesday’s data indicated a 73 percent improvement in volume of shares traded and a further 6 percent improvement in turnover.

The Ghana Stock Exchange witnessed a barrage of trading activities on the day with SIC Insurance leading the chart. On the volume front, SIC Insurance Company recorded the highest volume of 3 million traded shares. This was followed by MTN Ghana with a total of 129,283 traded shares. CAL Bank on the other hand also secured 43,487 traded shares while Standard Chartered Bank garnered 9,010 traded shares.

The market capitalization of the Ghana Stock Exchange maintained its value. The current market capitalization stands at GH¢ 62.9 billion.

However, Ukraine and Russia situation remains firm in investors mind as tensions escalated with Russia firing missiles into the heart of Ukraine on early Thursday morning. Analyst are closely monitoring the local bourse to see how investors will react to the Ukraine and Russia conflict.