Business News of Wednesday, 12 January 2000

Source: Reuters

Standard Chartered lifts Ghana bourse index

05:38 p.m Jan 11, 2000 Eastern

ACCRA, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The Ghana Stock Exchange extended its gains on Tuesday, with volume boosted by heavy trading in Standard Chartered bank (SCB.GH) shares, according to the official bourse report.

The index rose 1.53 percent to close at 737.85 or 0.36 percent on the year to date.

The Exchange was trading on Tuesday after being closed on Monday for Moslem Ramadan holiday.

A block of 1,002,700 Social Security Bank (SSB.GH) shares traded at an unchanged price of 1,985 cedis. This took total bourse volume to 1,008,700 shares for a value of 2.030 billion cedis ($581,591), sharply up from last Friday's 37.50 million cedis ($10,000) for 10,600 shares.

Standard Bank gained 100 cedis to close at 19,200, with 1,900 shares traded. The second gainer was Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB.GH), which added five cedis to 765. It traded 1,600 shares.

($-3,490 cedis)