Ghana’s stock market was unusually busy last week. More shares changed hands, more money flowed through the exchange, and trading value more than doubled.
But for investors watching the value of their holdings, it was not necessarily a better week.
The Ghana Stock Exchange recorded GH¢93.3 million in share transactions during the week, up 138.5% from GH¢39.1 million the previous week. Trading volume also climbed 81.2% to 15.03 million shares from 8.29 million.
Yet, as activity picked up, the broader market moved in the opposite direction.
The GSE Composite Index fell 1.37% to 14,814.08 points, while the GSE Financial Stocks Index dropped 0.92% to 7,818.11 points.
The decline was also reflected in the total value of companies listed on the exchange. Market capitalisation fell by about GH¢3.5 billion over the week, from GH¢284.03 billion to GH¢280.53 billion.
Much of the week’s trading frenzy came from one company.
MTN Ghana accounted for 9.94 million shares traded, making up about two-thirds of all shares exchanged during the week. The transactions were worth GH¢68.25 million, meaning roughly seven out of every 10 cedis traded on the exchange went into MTN Ghana shares.
That dominance pulled the Information and Communication Technology sector well ahead of every other sector, with GH¢68.34 million in value traded.
Finance came a distant second at GH¢18.52 million, followed by Food and Beverage at GH¢2.99 million and Insurance at GH¢1.66 million.
GCB Bank was the next major counter drawing investor activity, with GH¢15.14 million worth of shares traded. KASA followed with GH¢2.52 million, while EGH and EGL recorded GH¢1.20 million and GH¢1.01 million respectively.
But while investors were putting more money into the market, price movements told a less encouraging story.
Only two of the listed market movers recorded gains during the week. DIGICUT jumped 50% from GH¢0.26 to GH¢0.39, while GCB rose 1% to GH¢39.55.
The declines were more widespread.
DASPHARMA suffered the steepest fall, dropping 38.89% to GH¢1.21. CLYD lost 13.38%, while IIL fell 13.33%. TOTAL declined 8.92%, ZEN dropped 8.17%, and HORDS, ACCESS and KASA also ended the week lower.
Across the stocks tracked, the average price change was a 3.42% decline.
The busiest sessions came in the middle of the week. On September 1, investors traded 4.49 million shares worth GH¢25.86 million. The following day, another 4.11 million shares changed hands, but the value reached an even higher GH¢26.78 million, the highest daily turnover of the week.
The week’s numbers therefore paint a market with two very different faces: trading activity was booming, but share prices were under pressure.
And the heavy concentration in MTN Ghana means the rise in activity does not necessarily signal a broad-based rush into Ghanaian stocks. A handful of counters, led overwhelmingly by MTN Ghana, accounted for most of the money changing hands.
Still, the weekly declines have done little to erase the extraordinary gains recorded by some stocks since the beginning of the year.
IIL remains up 1,200% year-to-date, CLYD has gained 936%, and HORDS is up 730%. SIC has risen 338.33%, while DIGICUT remains 333.33% higher than its end-2025 level.
For investors, then, last week’s market was less a story of falling interest in equities than one of heavy trading alongside a broad pullback in prices, with MTN Ghana doing much of the heavy lifting on the activity side.
