The local bond and equities market is witnessing a sustained revival, with data from the Ghana Stock Exchange’s (GSEs) report containing a summary of monthly activities showing that the Ghana Fixed Income Market (GFIM) is outdoing its previous record for volumes traded, as well as the equities market recording significant gains.
This comes on the back of a very strong performance as 2020 closed off; with the GFIM shattering the 100 million ceiling of volumes traded for the first time, and the equities market recording its second highest annual volume of shares traded.
Market performance in the first month of 2021 suggests that the gains made are not outliers but part of a pattern of market appreciation.
Equity bulls
An impressive number of shares – 98,730,624 to be precise – valued at GH¢69,716,581 were traded during the course of the month. The figures are a 75.41% and 53.42% appreciation over the 56,286,050 and GH¢45,441,977.88 in volume and value traded respectively recorded in the comparable period of 2020.
MTN Ghana held sway over share trading in January, as it was responsible for a mammoth 97.5% of volumes traded as well as 90.1% in value. This shows a sustained appetite by investors for stock of the telecommunication giant, as it has been the most traded stock on the local bourse since its Initial Public Offer (IPO) some 24 months ago in September 2018.
The performance of MTN has renewed calls for other multinational corporations to float shares on the exchange.
On account of this, the primary Index – the GSE’s Composite Index (GSE-CI) – gained 4.41% to close at 2,027.12 points. This is however a dip by 8.37% from the 2,212.21 recorded in January 2020.
Market capitalisation closed at GH¢55,332.59million, compared to the GH¢56,714.42million of January 2020; a depreciation of 2.44%. In all, there were price changes in 11 stocks recorded for January 2021, with 8 gains and 3 losses.
Debt gains
GFIM, which has been on the ascendancy – smashing records for volume traded multiple times in 2020 – recorded its highest month volume of trade in the more than five years since its inception in August 2015, with 18.15 billion.
This represents a 36% rise over the 13.34 billion of the previous month, and a whopping 133% gain Year-on-Year (YoY). “Number of trades during the month was 19,356, representing an increase of 43% over that same period of last year,” the report stated.
