The total market capitalisation of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) as of the end of December last year increased by GH¢264.68 to GH¢54, 374.88.

At the same period, a total volume of 1,836,300 shares valued at GH¢1,264,084.00 were traded on the Accra bourse.

The CDH Securities Limited in its Stock Market Summary copied to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday, said the GSE-Composite Index (CI) in the period under review increased by 25.29 points.

The GSE-CI is a major stock market index which tracks the performance of all companies traded in the Ghana Stock Exchange.

However, the CDH Securities report indicated that the year-to-date return on the GSE contracted by 13.98 per cent.

It said the most traded equity for December 31, 2020 was MTNGH, which accounted for 98.98 per cent of the total shares traded and 91.73 per cent of the total value of shares traded.

It said Ecobank Ghana was the day’s biggest gainer as the stock price appreciated by 9.92 per cent to close the market at GH¢ 16.31 per share.

“Based on bids and offer dynamics on the market as well as historical price changes, we forecast Standard Chartered Bank and Ecobank Ghana shares to appreciate in value in the upcoming weeks,” it said.

Highlighting on the Fixed Income Market performance, the report said the total amount of money targeted to be raised from the issuance of Government of Ghana Treasury Bill by the Bank of Ghana on the 28th of December 2020 was GH ¢1.01billion.

It said an amount of GH¢971.75 million was sold on the primary market leaving an outstanding balance of GH¢39.25 million, adding that the rates for the 91-day, 182 day and the 364 day for that week were 14.087 per cent, 14.128 per cent and 16.99 per cent respectively.

“The top five most traded Cocoa bills for this week, the maturity dates for these instruments as well as the rates at which the instruments can be bought on the secondary markets by prospective investors are shown in columns three and four of the fixed income market summary table,” the report said.

It said trading as of 30th December 2020 saw the market experience a decrease in turnover by 6.76 per cent as it recorded over GH¢ 422 million worth of bonds, notes and bills traded.

The report disclosed that the top 5 traded instruments were the December 31 12-Year, March 25 3-Year, February 21 2-Year and November 26 10-Year, and pointed out that the top 5 traded instruments accounted for 55 per cent of the total volume of trades.

On the forex market performance, the CDH Securities Limited said the forex rates from the Bank of Ghana showed that the cedi depreciated against the dollar, the euro and the pound sterling by 0.035 per cent, 0.34 per cent and 0.91 per cent respectively as of December 31, 2020.

“Banks increased their forex rates with regards to the dollar, the euro and the pound sterling by 0.345 per cent, 0.11 per cent and 0.509 per cent respectively for today. The forex market increased its forex rates with regards to the dollar, the euro and the pound sterling by 0.50 per cent, 0.43 per cent and 1.06 per cent respectively for today,” it said.