Editorial: Sophistication among Ghanaian corporates in equity market
According to a recent report from the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), foreign corporate investors continued to be the dominant force in the domestic equity market – accounting for nearly 86 percent of total shares value sold between January and April 2025.
The data show that foreign companies sold GH¢531.71million in equities during the period out of GH¢618.06million total market value. Thus, they accounted for 48.02 million shares traded, which translates to 57 percent of market volume.
This placed them as the highest investor segment ahead of the profit-taking season, which has coincided with rapid appreciation of the cedi.
Despite the dominance of foreign firms, domestic institutions – especially pension funds and local companies – have shown a measured but visible increase in equity participation. Pension funds accounted for GH¢156.55million in trades, or 14 percent of total market value – up from 10 percent over the same period in 2024.
Consequently, analysts attribute this activity to sustained interest in large-cap stocks and exchange-traded funds, particularly the NewGold ETF which remains an attractive vehicle for institutional hedging strategies amid a volatile global macroeconomic backdrop. Other preferred counters were financial stocks and market leader MTN.
Local corporate investors also demonstrated significant engagement, trading           GH¢343.17million on the buy side and GH¢62.48million on the sell side. Their combined volume of 52.5 million shares is nearly equivalent to that of their foreign corporate counterparts.
Analysts therefore point to a growing sophistication among Ghanaian corporates in Treasury management as equities increasingly form part of short- to medium-term investment strategies.
Meanwhile, local individual investors contributed GH¢69.80million in buy-side trades and GH¢23.18million on the sell side – totaling 38.61 million shares. Although this represents roughly 15 percent of market volume, their share of value remains low at around 11 percent.
This disparity indicates that local retail participation is skewed toward lower-priced equities or small-volume trades – an area market experts say has room for expansion, particularly with the application of technology to increase ease of trade.
The ICT sector contributed 65 percent of total market volume – driven primarily by MTN, the largest listed company by market capitalisation. The financial sector followed with 30 percent of traded shares and 8.3 percent of value.
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