Ghana Stock Exchange at the end of the week ending Jul 11, could be regarded as exhibiting mixed personalities, with the indices being down, but at the end of the week a few more stocks were up in price that those that fell.
The overall market took a breather from its recent gains by week end, as the main index having started at the week at 2,392.68 points, ended at 2,365.72 points. The Financial index closed at 2,144.52, down from 2,163.13 at the end of the previous week. For the week, 8 stocks recorded gains versus 7 that declined. A total of 1,314,746 units traded during the week.
Of the 38 listings, 18 had bids and 22 offers, as the market continues to reflect lack of interest in a large portion of the market.
Stocks with the major prices changes during the week are, Benso Oil Palm Plantation up 8 percent, Mega African Capital up 6 percent and Produce Buying Company up 6 percent but Camelot Ghana fell 7 percent followed by Guinness Ghana Breweries down 6 percent and HFC Bank down 6 percent.
Ghana stocks up for another week
Ghana Commercial Bank 2013 annual general meeting – the bank’s stock rose 27% for the week
The Ghana stock market continues to recover from the decline the market suffered since peaking in February. During the week the market closed with the composite index at 2,343.98 with 11 stocks rising while 7 declined, a marked change over the previous week when the composite index closed the previous at 2,319.12 points with the prices of 8 stocks climbing and 7 declining.
The financial services index closed the week at 2,066.58 up from 2,033.20 the week before. During the week, 1,868,436 shares were traded, down from 3,235,500 units in the week before. At the end of trading there were bids for 18 securities and offers for 28, an indication of weakness in the overall market.
Gains| The stocks closing with strong gains include, Benso Oil Palm Plantation that rose by 6 percent to close at GH¢2.48, Ecobank Ghana gained GH¢0.55 or 8 percent to reach GH¢7.05, Ecobank Transnational Incorporation gained GH¢0.03 or 15 percent to close at GH¢0.23, Ghana Commercial Bank closed at GH¢5.35 as the price jumped by 27 percent or GH¢1.14, HFC Bank closed up GH¢0.11 to GH¢1.45 for an 8 percent gain, Produce Buying Company gained 8 percent to GH¢0.14, Sic Insurance gained 14 percent to close at GH¢0.42, Societe Generale Ghana was up 11 percent to GH¢0.92 and Sam Wood gained 33 percent to end at GH¢0.04.
The big losers are Enterprise Group with a loss of GH¢0.57 to close at GH¢1.42 for a 29 percent decline, Mega African Capital lost 11 percent in value to close at GH¢3.10 and Mechanical Lloyd ended at GH¢0.29 down by 12 percent.
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.
