The stock market delivered its worst performance for the year as the Composite Index closed 13.78 points lower than the previous week’s 2,454.34 points.
The year-to-date loss on the Financial Stock Index was 1.29%, down 96 basis points from the previous week.
The market capitalization however surged to GH¢59.81B from GH¢59.75B a week ago. This represented a marginal increase of 0.10%.
Investors exchanged the shares of 20 companies on the bourse resulting in three gainers and six laggards. While share’s price of 11 companies remained unchanged.
CAL Bank (CAL) gained a pesewa to close at GH¢1.04 and joined the pack of gainers. On the contrary, BOPP led six losers with a 15.57% dip to close at GH¢4.12; this, analyst believe is due to a 46% decline in profits as reflected in the full year 2018 financial results.
BOPP recorded a decline in profits resulted from 12% fall in revenue without a corresponding decline in cost of sales which dropped by 7%. Earnings per share fell to GH¢0.16 from GH¢0.31 the previous year. On the back of this discouraging performance the falling prices in crude palm oil, both bottom line and top line may be impacted negatively.
Liquidity dropped 2% from the previous week’s 746,215 shares. Much concentration was seen in the shares of MTNGH as it traded 45% of total market value. RBGH and TBL followed suite with a contribution of 21% and 10% respectively. The GAX saw some activity with 700 shares of IIL exchanging hands. Tullow Oil (TLW) traded 20 shares in a week that the company declared a dividend of 0.04 pounds;
Total executed trade was 297 less than the previous week’s 1,470 trades. Volume traded was GH¢562 million which represented a decline of 47% from a billion shares the previous week. Of the total volume, 95% was traded on the CSD platform while the remaining 5% traded on the Bloomberg platform. Some Bonds issued were from the Government of Ghana, while issued Corporate Bonds also issued were from IZWE Loans Ltd. AFB (GH.) Ltd. ESLA Plc. and PBC Ltd. among others.