The stock market delivered its worst performance this year in a week that saw the Cedi strengthening against the major trading currencies. The Composite Index closed 17.08 points lower than the previous week to touch 2,315.69 points.   Investor confidence remains on the low side even though banks have showed some strong financial performance in recent times.

The year-to-date loss on the Financial Stock Index was 42 basis points down from a loss of 4.13% a week ago.

Trading resulted in two gainers and five losers out of shares of eighteen companies trading. This caused the market capitalization to drop 0.64% to GH¢57.52 billion.

The stock market was characterized by less market activities as liquidity was 72% lower than the 691,050 shares the previous week. Total volume was valued at GH¢214 thousand compared to GH¢1.84 million a week ago. Share price of ETI lost a pesewa in trading 30,100 shares representing 16% of total volume and closed at GH¢0.10 by close of week. Shares of CAL traded 15% of    volume to be the second most traded stock.

MTNGH rolls to the TOP!!!! 

The telecommunications giant, MTNGH, emerged as the most liquid stock for the week by trading 49% of total volume few days after posting a positive half year financial results. Revenue was 19% higher, compared to the same period the previous year. This came from an 18.8% increase in Service revenue; 14.8% growth in Solid voice revenue and 27.7% rise in Data revenue. With cost reducing by a percent, profits were 10% higher than a year before. The company appears to have much business prospects in the Mobile Money (MoMo) services. Revenue from MoMo transactions increased by 53.3% for the six-month period to June 2019 when compared with prior period. This was mainly attributable to a higher number of person-to-person (P2P) transactions as well as good growth in more advanced services such as retail merchant payments.

MTNGH has declared an interim dividend of   GH¢0.02 per share for the half year period; this will commutatively sum up to a total dividend of GH¢0.07 per share paid in less than a year of listing on Ghana Stock Exchange. However, the share price is lingering below its IPO price of GH¢0.75 and is currently at   GH¢0.70. Analysts are of the opinion that the shares are widely held (second most widely held shares on the bourse) which allows investors to flood the market with sell orders, causing excess    supply; the likely reason for its downturn in the share price.