Trading activities on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) picked up in May this year despite the bite of the novel Coronavirus on markets and the global economy.

A summary of May 2020 trading activities released by the GSE said trading activities on the local bourse jumped in May with a 147 percent increase over the trades recorded at the end of April.

The total volumes of shares traded at the end of May stood at 72,618,971 compared with the 29,372,476 shares recorded at the end of April this year.

“Total value increased by 114 percent to end May 2020 with GH¢47,825 million as against GH¢22,354 million recorded at the end of April, 2020,” the GSE said.

The GSE explained that the daily average value recorded in May was GH?2, 517 million compared to GH¢1,117 million recorded in April this year.

It said the total traded stocks between January and May 2020 was 201,504,907 shares valued at GH¢147,024,696.05 representing 135 percent and 73 percent respectively over volume and value traded for the same period in 2019.

The GSE said the GSE Composite index, at the end of May recorded a decline of 14.01 percent (YTD) compared to the 8.74 (YTD) recorded at the end of April 2020, adding that that “this was due to selling pressure from investors on the market”.

It said the top five volumes of stocks traded were MTN Ghana, 188,381,392, Cal Bank, 3,422,624, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, 1,910,027, Ecobank Ghana Limited, 1,389,555 and Aluworks 1,197,862.

The GSE indicated that the MTN Ghana led the group terms of the top five in terms of the value of stocks traded with 121,630,336.6, EGH with 7,681,211.59, GCB with 5,219,371.46, SCB with 5,084,297.64 and Cal with 2,940,235.26.

On the Fixed Income Market, the GSE said the volumes of securities traded for the month of May 2020 went down by 298 million from the April 2020 figures of 9,188,273,051.00 and the total volume of 8,889,357,142 securities were traded at a value of GH¢9, 198,499,234.00.

“The total cumulative trades executed on the Fixed Income Market from January 2020 to the end of May 2020 stands at 40,485,145,499, a 50 percent increase over the same period in 2019 and 73 percent of the entire 2019 trade volume.

Liquidity of the market has increased to 32 percent at the end of May from 26 percent in April 2020,” the GSE said.

It said the top five securities traded in the period under review were the Government of Ghana securities which ranged from two and ten-year bonds.

For the two-year bond, the GSE said the volume traded was 969,296,001 at an interest rate of 15.78 percent with 1,536 of trades, while the volume traded for the three-year bond was 2,571,258,449 at an interest rate of 13.04 percent which attracted 1,933 trades.

The GSE said the volume traded for the five-year bond was 1,852,858,846 at an interest rate of 16.08 percent with 1,821 trades and the volume traded for the six-year bond was 741,096,647 at an interest rate of 20.20 with trades of 95 percent and the volume for the 10-year bond was 1,125,352,866 at an interest rate of 20.56 percent with 359 trades.