Accra, March 18, GNA - The Ghana Stock Exchange took a steep plunge in trading on Friday after losses by four equities in moderate trading that once again highlighted the poor performance of the bourse since the beginning of the year.

The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) All-Share Index, the main stock index, plummeted by a whopping 168.16 points at 6,477.99 points from Wednesday's 6,646.15 points while change for the year decelerated further at -4.72 per cent.

There were five price changes - one up and four down. Cocoa Processing Company (CPC) lost 200 cedis at 800 cedis, Home Finance Company (HFC) plunged by 900 cedis at 8,600 cedis, SG-SSB Bank plummeted by 2,000 cedis at 25,000 cedis and Unilever was down by 1,000 cedis at 19,000 cedis. Patterson Zochonis (PZ) was the only gainer after going up by 300 cedis at 5,700 cedis.

Shares traded increased to 701,800 from 38,400 shares on Wednesday. Market capitalization was down at 96,740.79 billion cedis from 97,199.83 billion cedis on Monday.

The following are the last prices of listed equities in cedis:

ABL 1,480 AGA 300,000 AADs 3,000 ALW 6,200 BAT 4,500 BOPP 7,000 CAL 3,400 CFAO 255 CLYD 1,300 CMLT 1,290 CPC 800 -200 EIC 8,000 FML 18,000 GBL 1,600 GCB 13,010 GGL 12,500 HFC 8,600 -900 MGL 275 MLC 3,000 MOGL 39,010 PAF 800 PBC 3,300 PZ 5,700 +300 SCB 160,000 SPL 750 SPPC 390 SG-SSB 25,000 -2,000 SWL 290 TBL 31,000 UNIL 19,000 -1,000