The financial stocks are driving the performance of the Ghana Stock Exchange despite the market’s negative return to investors so far this year.

According to the March 2022 Monthly Report, volume and value traded were 214.96 million and ¢273.13 million, both up 272.59% and 389.35% respectively on volumes and values traded same period last year. The volume and value traded were the highest monthly traded since August 2019.

However, the value traded in March 2022 was 797% over that of February 2022.

The March performance of the Ghana Stock Exchange was a marginal improvement over that of last month, with a return of -1.67% for the market.  However, the performance of the Financial Stocks was positive, closing the month with a return of 1.07%.

This was due to gains in SIC, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, Trust Bank Gambia and Access Bank.

Investor confidence also started picking up due to the strong earnings reported by listed companies. This led to increased activity on the market, recording 2,256 transactions.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Fixed Income Market closed the month with a new all-time record volume of 28.13 billion traded, breaking the record set during the same period last year.

The cumulative volume traded from January to March 2022 of 64.14 billion was 6.98% more than 60 billion traded in some period last year.