Standchart gain pushes index up

A big gain by Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), the highest priced equity on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), on Wednesday gave a big shot to the All-Share Index although traded volumes hit another low mark.

The index, the main gauge of the bourse, gained 14.53 points to close at 1,830.02 points from 1,815.49 points. SCB gained ?1,995 at ?36,000. Daniel Ogbarmey Tetteh of Data Bank Brokerage firm told the GNA in Accra that most of the listed equities including the banking stocks recorded no offer price because of the short supply of shares.

On Wednesday, 20 of the 25 listed equities recorded no offer prices. Total shares traded slumped to 54,300 from 1,164,800 on Monday. Total shares traded on Monday jumped largely on SSB Bank selling more than one million shares.

Tetteh said generally, the banking sector has remained attractive for investment. He said GCB had not been performing very well after its Annual General Meeting because of the reluctance of investors to sell in expectation of high performance if government should sell the bank.

Market capitalization went up from ?7,922.82bn to ?7,958.18bn while the change in the year to date fixed at 31.16 per cent. On the broader market, there were three price changes - all positive. Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) and Unilever Ghana Limited (UNIL) gained ?1 each to close the day at ?431 and ?6,752 respectively. SCB gained ?1,995 at ?36,000.

The following are the last prices of listed equities in cedis:

 ABL             431            +1 
 AGC            28,500
 ALW            4,000
 BAT             1,702
 CFAO          72
 CPC             630
 EIC               5,005
 FML             2,216
 GBL             550

 GCB             5,400
 GGL             2,001
 HFC             1,500
 MGL            258
 MLC            400 MOGL         19,950 PAF             750 PBC             380 PZ                2,040
 SCB             36,000   +1,995 SPPC           390 SSB              7,000
 SWL             285 TBL              5,200
 UNIL            6,762      +1
 CMLT           460