Government misses GH¢952m auction target

The government missed its weekly auction target of GH¢952 million in the week ending December 8, after bids tendered totalled GH¢ 750.84 million.

That notwithstanding, the government accepted GH¢614.62 million and returned the rest to investors. About 60.38 per cent of the total bids accepted by the government were the 91-Day T-bill.

At the close of the week’s auction, the yield on the 91-Day T-Bill declined marginally by three basis points to settle at 13.31 per cent but the rate-of-return on the 182-Day Treasury security inched up by four basis points to settle at 13.86 per cent.

The two-year fixed note, which now goes for 17.50 per cent was raised by 26 basis points.

All the other treasury instruments had their rate-of-returns unchanged.

Stock market

Trading on the Ghana Stock Exchange ended on a bearish note. The GSE Composite Index dropped by 0.04 per cent to settle at an index level of 2,520.78 points. This corresponded to a year-to-date return of 49.24 per cent.

The GSE Financial Stock Index also declined by 1.13 per cent to settle at 2,227.16 points, representing a year-to-date return of 44.11 per cent.

At the closing bell, trades were significantly below previous week’s record.

Total traded volume stood at 2.36 million shares valued at GH¢2.74 million compared to 3.66 million volume of shares valued at GH¢11.80 million recorded last two week.

CAL Bank was the most actively traded stock; it accounted for 80.77 per cent of the week’s total traded volume.

The market capitalisation also trimmed by 0.01 per cent to settle at GH¢58.5 billion.

Price movements

Eight equities recorded price changes. This comprised five advancers and three laggards.

Benso Oil Palm Plantation Ltd topped the advancers with five pesewas gain to trade at GH¢6.1 per share.

GCB Bank Ltd and Total Petroleum Ltd had their share prices lifted by four pesewas each to close the week at GH¢4.54 and GH¢3.54 per share respectively.

Unilever Ghana Ltd and CAL Bank Ltd advanced by two pesewas and one pesewa to trade at GH¢12.82 and GH¢1.06 per share respectively.

Access Bank Ghana Plc recorded the most loss in the week’s trading, as it shed 17 pesewas to settle at GH¢3.83 per share.

Ghana Oil Company Ltd and Enterprise Group Ltd also went down by two pesewas and one pesewa to end the week’s trading at GH¢2.65 and GH¢3.82 per share respectively.

Cedi resurrects

On the interbank currency market, the cedi firmed against all the three major trading currencies after gaining significant support from the US$1.05 billion that has far been disbursed from the cocoa syndicated loan.

This helped to subdue mounting pressures, following demand uptick for foreign currencies prior to the festive seasons.

Although the dollar rose to a six-week high on the international currency market, the cedi recorded a week-on-week appreciation of 0.02 per cent to end the week at GH¢4.41. The year-to-date depreciation, thus, stood at 5.02 per cent.

The British pound also closed the week stronger on the international currency market but failed to hold its own against the local currency.

The cedi gained 1.02 per cent against the pound to trade at GH¢5.9 per pound.

This brought the year-to-date depreciation of the cedi to 13.59 per cent as at December 8.

On the other hand, the euro was knocked down by downbeat macroeconomic data from the Eurozone.

The cedi, thus, appreciated by 1.06 per cent to trade at GH¢5.2 per euro. The year-to-date depreciation of the cedi stood at 17.24 per cent.