The number of stocks declining in the market to May 9 increased from 11 the previous week to 13 at the end of the current week but the number advancing climbed from 1 to 5 as trading on the Ghana Stock exchange continued to decline and has almost wiped out the gains enjoyed in the two months to February. 
At the close of the week the market continue to show signs of weakness while the two indices declined with the GSE Composite Index closing at 2247.01 compared with 2,255.20 at the end of the previous week’s trading and the GSE Financial Stocks index that closed at 1,899.49 compared with 1,913.11, leaving the GSE FS index up just 6.3 percent for the year to date.
The level of trading for the week declined to 6,488,878 million shares compared with the previous week at 9.8 million shares.
In trading African Champion Industries fell 33 percent in trading 3,963,100 units on Friday with the price ending at GH¢0.04, Aluworks lost 17 percent to close GH¢0.05, Eco Bank Transnational lost 9 percent to close at GH¢0.20, Sic Insurance Company lost 13 percent to close at GH¢0.35 and Societe Generale Ghana lost 6 percent to close at GH¢0.62 were the stocks that suffered the greatest loss. Tullow Oil Plc closed with a 16 percent gain to end the week at GH¢35.
At the end of the week there was still signs of weakness with only 18 stocks having bids and 27 offers compared to 15 to 29 at the end of the week before.
13 stocks down, 5 up on GSE
11 stocks down, 1 up on GSE
Trading on the Ghana Stock exchange for the week ending May 2, continued the decline that has been evident ever since the country’s currency came under added pressure and interest rates were pushed further upwards. In the past week the market reversed the moderate gain experienced in the prior week by shedding the prices of 11 stocks and facilitating only one price gain.
At the close of the week, the market continues to show signs of weakness while the two indices declined with the GSE Composite Index closing at 2,255.20 compared with 2,276.12 at the end of the previous week’s trading. The GSE Financial Stocks index closed at 1,913.11 compared with 1,934.75 on the April 17, leaving the index up 7 percent for the year to date.
The level of trading for the week picked strongly from the 1.5 million shares traded for the previous week, as 9.8 million shares changed hands for the holiday shortened week. Cal Bank accounted for 7,119,700 shares on Tuesday, and on Wednesday 2,186,100 shares of the total traded, while losing 14 percent of its value by week end, to end at GH¢2.50. Except for these two trades, the volume of stocks traded was very low.
Sic Insurance Company lost 5 percent to close at GH¢0.40 and Societe Generale Ghana lost 6 percent to close at GH¢0.66 were the stocks that suffered the greatest loss. At the end of the week there was still signs of weakness with only 15 stocks having bids and 29 offers compared to 18 to 29 at the end of the week before.
New listing on GSE as prices gain
The week ending April 25 saw one new entrant to the list of companies as Mega African Capital (MAC) a long-term private investment company became the newest listing on the Ghana Stock Exchange having listed on April 24.
MAC traded 5,500 shares at GH¢3.50 having opened at GH¢3.10 for a gain of GH¢0.40. The company objective is to target high net-worth investors looking for African opportunities to generate high real returns. The total number of shares issued by the company is 8,641,469 units.
At the close of the week, the market continues to show signs of weakness but it managed to slow the decline somewhat, with 6 stocks advancing, to 4 that declined while the two indices gained moderately, with the GSE Composite Index closing at 2,276.12 compared with 2,272.40, at the end of the previous week’s trading. The GSE Financial Stocks index that closed at 1,934.75 on the final trading day of the previous week, closed higher with 5 of the 6 stocks advancing and only one of the declining stocks were from the financial sector.
The level of trading for the week was poor, with only 1.5 million shares trading, of which 1.1 million traded on Friday, Societe Generale Ghana traded 1 million units on that day.
Rising interest rates affect GSE stocks
Economic pressures continue to hammer Ghana with the exchange rate closing at GH¢2.77 to the US dollar on Thursday April 17 versus GH¢2.16 to the US dollar, a 36 percent fall in value over the 18 slippage against the United States dollar, at the end of March.
The falling local currency will spike inflation and lead to investors demanding more compensation in higher interest rates on local money, as a result, the 3 months Treasury Bill rate for the April 11 auction rose to 24.06 percent up from 23.69 percent at the end of March and 18.5 percent at the end of December last year. 
Rising interest rates, result in falling stock prices as investors switch to what they see as instruments of higher returns. This has happened in Ghana, with stock prices that rose sharply up to the week ending February 21, falling ever since. This past week, the market lost 3%, based on the Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index, to close at 2,272.40 points and the Ghana Stock Exchange Financial index, lost 4% to close at 1,934.75 points. At the end of the previous week, the indices recorded a decline of 2 percent and 3 percent respectively. The market at the peak this year, recorded gains of 21 percent for the financial index of the Ghana Stock exchange, while the market’s composite index was up, just under 13 percent, by the February 21. On Thursday, the year to date gains melted to just 5.93 for the composite index and 8.29 percent for the financial index.
In the past trading week ending Thursday April 17, the Ghana Stock market decline was fuelled by an advanced, decline ratio of just one stock recording gain, versus 13 stocks that fell, a much worse situation than the previous week, of 5 stocks gaining compared to 8 declining and the week of April 4, when 8 stocks fell to 7 that increased in price.
Trading for the four day week, accounted for 5,783,737 shares compared to 2,571,333 the week before. Of the amount traded this past week, 4,696,499 was traded on Tuesday and only 352,288 on Thursday.
Rising inflation & interest rates affect stocks
Rising interest rates in Ghana is affecting demand for stocks in this West African Country. The country is seeing high levels of inflation with the latest data showing the monthly change rate for February at 1.1 percent, against the 3.9 percent recorded in January 2014 and fiscal deficit that is running around 10 percent of GDP and devaluation of the country’s currency which are influencing investors to demand more interest on savings.
Interest rates which were in the order of 18.5 percent at the end of December last year is now at 23.69 percent for the 91 Days Treasury Bills and is up strongly from end of February at 21.21 percent. The exchange rate has slipped by 18 percent against the United States dollar since the start of the year which has effectively wiped out the gains of 11.24 percent in the main index and 17.14 percent in the financial index for the year to date, in real terms.
In the past week, the Ghana Stock market declined and has been doing so from the week starting February 24 and seems poised to decline some more as buying interest recedes with only 14 bids in the market at the close on Friday March 28 and is down from 19 bids on Wednesday and compared to 23 offers on Friday. For the week only 4 stocks enjoyed price gains and 11 declined compared to 8 rising the week before to 6 that declined.
The Ghana Stock Exchange Composite Index closed the week at 2,386.39 points and was down from 2,388.74 at the end of the previous week and the Ghana Stock Exchange Financial index ended at 2,092.75 points compared to 2,110.94 at the end of the prior week.
GSE: 8 up 11 down for week
Friday, 14th March 2014 | The Ghana Stock Market closed down for the third consecutive week this year with the GSE Composite index shedding 16.11 to close at 2,403.27. The GSE financial stock index, which closed down by 33.91 to 2,168.26 on the 28th February, has closed down 20 .77 points since then to land at 2,147.49. For the past week, 8 stocks advanced and 11 declined.
The recent decline has not dented the year-to-date gains with GSE Composite Index up 12.03 percent for the first 2 months of the year and the GSE financial stock index gaining 20.20 percent. The softer market comes against a background of slippage in the foreign exchange rate for the Ghana currency, which is down by 15 percent in value since the start of the year with the rate reaching GH¢ 2.552 at the end of the week compared with GH¢2.1616 to US$1. Also, there has been rising interest rates with the 91 T-bill rate for the auction on 14th March coming out at 22.8927% up from 19.2236% at the end of December 2013. The inflation rate remains at elevated levels with the annual (year-on-year) inflation rate to February 2014 at 14.0%.
Volumes were at 1.34 million units in the just concluded week, which is down from 2.7 million traded for the week ended March 7th. In February, 5.2 million traded in the first week, 3.6 million units for the second week, followed by 2,676,472 units in week three and just over 1 million units in the last week.
Main Advances | The stocks gaining most for the week include Aluworks up 20 percent; Cal Bank up 15 percent and Eco Bank up 5 percent.
Main declines | At the end of the week. the stocks that declined most include Benso Oil Palm Plantation that fell by 5 percent; Produce Buying Company down by 6 percent; Societe Generale Ghana a fall of 8 percent and Trust Bank down 17 percent.
GSE: Ghana market slips first week
Ghana Stock Market closed with an overall decline for the week as both the main index and the financial index declined for the first time this year.
The Ghana Stock Exchange Composite index shed 18.29 to close at 2,420.91 and the GSE financial stock index closed down by 33.91 to 2,168.26 as 5 stocks advanced and 9 declined. The declines have not dented the year-to-date gains much with GSE Composite Index up 12.85 percent for the first two months of the year and the GSE financial stock index gaining 21.36 percent.
The market still lacks adequate participation with bids in for just about half of the listings, a factor that has been present from 2013. Volumes have been declining for February with just over 1 million units trading this week, down from 2,676,472 units in the prior week, $3.6 million units in the week ending February 14 and 5.2 million in the first week of the month. This week’s volume is the lowest since the start of the year.
Main Advances | Sic Insurance up 13 percent and Mechanical Lloyd up by 3 percent for the week.
Main declines | The stocks that declined most during this week are Ghana Oil off by 9 percent, Ghana Commercial Bank down 8 percent, Benso Oil Palm Plantation fell by 4 percent, Cal Bank down by 5 percent and Trust Bank 4 percent.
For the year to the end of February, there were 9 stocks with gains between 9 and 57 percent and 6 that declined between 11 and 29 percent.
GSE: Ghana stocks close up
Friday, 21st February 2014 | The Ghana Stock Exchange closed moderately up for the week as 9 stocks closed the week with gains versus 6 that declined. The GSE Composite Index rose 8.77 points to close at 2,439.20 and the GSE Financial services index rose 22.18 points to close at 2202.17.
Major movers | At the end of the week, Enterprise Group was up 11 percent on top of a 9 percent increase the week before to close at GH(¢)2.25; Ecobank Transnational Incorporation up 5 percent, closing at GH(¢)0.22; HFC Bank gained 8 percent to close at GH(¢)1.09 to add to the 7 percent gain in the prior week; Societe Generale Ghana gained 17 percent to close at GH(¢)1.18 or 22 percent over the prior week; and Total Petroleum up 4 percent to close at GH(¢)5.25.
Losers | Those that lost value this week are Aluworks down 17 percent to close at GH(¢)0.05, the stock gained 20 percent in the previous week; Cal Bank 3 percent, closing at GH(¢)1.01; Ghana Commercial Bank 4 percent and ended down at GH(¢)4.45 and Guinness Ghana Breweries 3 percent decrease to GH(¢)6.
During the week, 2,676,472 shares changed hands compared with 3,597,617 shares the previous week.
Ghana financials up 21%
Wednesday, Feb 5th 2014 | Many stock markets would be pleased to record a gain of 21 percent in a year, but this is what the financial index for the Ghana Stock Exchange has done in just over a month.
Two stocks are kicking up a storm as the GSE financial stock index climbed 20.97 percent since the start of the year. The index gained 4 percent today as it climbed by 80.42 to end at 2,161.30 from 2,080.88 on close on Tuesday.
The GSE Composite index rose by 58.58 points at the end of today’s trading to 2,416.52, up 2.5 percent on the day. On Tuesday, the index closed at 2,357.95. Overall, the GSE index is up a more moderate 12.65 percent for the year than that of the financials. On Tuesday, the main index was up by 40.20 points or 1.7 percent.
In today’s trading, 5 stocks recorded gains versus 5 on Tuesday and only one declined on Wednesday to two on Tuesday.
Standard Chartered Bank Ghana put in another strong performance with GH(¢)1.50 gain to close at GH(¢)20.50 an increase of 8.5 percent. On Tuesday the price moved up by GH(¢)1.06 to close at GH(¢)19.
On Wednesday, Ecobank Ghana put on GH(¢)0.30 to end at GH(¢)7.50 for a gain of 4.2 percent. On Tuesday, the bank closed at $7.20 after posting a GH(¢)0.30 gain. New Gold Issuer dropped GH(¢)3.13 to close at GH(¢)23 on Tuesday.
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