In April, the Cedi depreciated by 0.04%   against the Dollar compared to 0.07% the same period last year. On a year-to-year basis the Cedi fell 15% against the Dollar.

In the month ahead, interest rates are    expected to remain low while investors remain optimistic about the stability of the Cedi, as the monetary policy rate and lending rate also remain low.

The Stock Market

The stock market exhibited some poor performance the in month of April, this was depicted by the GSE Composite Index (GSE-CI) which measures the performance of the stock market lingering down to record a year-to-date loss of 8.86%.  

This, analyst believe could be attributed to the fact the country is still recovering from the financial turbulence it experienced, leading to low investor confidence. This has caused institutional investors find low interest in the market thereby allocating funds to safer investments such as the Fixed Income Market.

Financial Stock Index showed an image of the general performance of the stock market as it measured a year-to-date loss of 6.02% compared to a year-to-date gain of 38.53% for the same period a year ago.

The bearish market was further depicted with the shares of 24 companies exchanging hands on the bourse. This resulted in 2 gainers and 13 laggards.

Liquidity was on a low level as the month produced 24 million shares that traded on the bourse. This was 14% below the previous year’s 34 million shares within the same period.

To emerge as the most liquid stock for the month, MTN traded 25 million shares representing 86% of total volume traded. GCB and GOIL followed by trading 8% and 4% of volume respectively. 

Analysts continue to remain optimistic of a rebound of the stock market by mid-year as the economy remains relatively stable. It is expected that as the local currency remains stable with other macroeconomic indicators showing growth in the economy the stock market would regain investor confidence to boost excitement on the market.