A pull back of 74.44 points from the declining stock market was experienced this week as the Composite index closed at 2,415.22 points.
Shares of some banks saw a boost to push the Financial Stock Index up by 441 basis points from the previous week.
In the wake of 4 gainers resulting from the trading of shares of 17 companies, the market capitalization surged 1.29% from GH¢58.19 billion a week ago.
Liquidity was 91% lower than the previous week mainly because there were fewer block trades this week, hence a total of 2.8 million shares trading by close of week
MTNGH traded 58% of total volume to become the most liquid stock for the week as investors benefited from the payment of dividend of GH¢0.03 per share. ETI and TBL followed with a contribution of 12% and 9% respectively.
CAL Bank on the move!!!
The bank, which happened to have been the only local bank in the country to meet the Central bank’s minimum capital requirement of GH¢400 million. CAL has demonstrated some level of business sustainability for the past few years and 2019 has seen some upward profits depicted by the 1st quarter financial report. Analysts anticipated a rise in profits in 2019 due to the bank’s new ultra-modern building which was energy efficient to help reduce cost significantly. Again, the bank deployed Agency Banking through distribution outlets and financial service agents which aided in a 3.28% rise in customer deposits. Further, the bank’s net interest income was 33% higher compared to the same period the previous year. This represented 80% of gross earnings, driven by 24.3% of net loans. It gave rise to a 26.10% increase in profits for the period. On the bank’s efficiency, the Return on Equity was 20.6%, an increase of 100 basis points while Return on Asset was 3.2% compared to 3.0% the previous year. Coupled with the bank’s strong performance, we expect investor confidence to rise in CAL due to the declaration of the payment of dividend of GH¢0.048 per share. After a difficult year 2018, perceptions are that the bank had shocks to resist downturns and therefore the bank’s operations are sustainable. Forward looking, the bank has plans to fully implement Agent Banking and roll out new e-offering such as e-loans and e-savings to the banked and unbanked; the promotion of women banking and business may push deposits up for the bank’s business prospects.