Journalists urged to use simple terms in stock exchange reportage

Journalists were on Tuesday asked to employ simple self-explanatory terms in their reportage of activities on the Ghana Stock Exchange to enable their stories to be relevant to stakeholders.

They have also been admonished to report about the market capitalization of the companies listed on the stock exchange to enable the public to recognize and track the daily progress or otherwise of the companies.

Mr Kwabena Situ, a Senior Audit and Advisory Manager of Deloitte Ghana (DG) gave the advice at a day’s capacity-building workshop organized in Accra by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) Ghana and DG for financial reporters.

“Tell the public that company “A’s” current value on the stock exchange was “X amount”, and that it has either reduced or increased to “Z” amount,” he said.

Mr Situ said in addition to the normal shares traded on the stock exchange, journalists needed to add comments on dividend yields (that is, dividend each year in relation to the share price), earnings per share (which indicates worth of each share) and price earning ratio (number of earnings to recoup ones price of share).

“Comments made in these areas also make the report on the Ghana Stock Exchange more meaningful to the public,” he added.

Mr Situ stressed that it would even be more useful to use the word “value” as an alternative to the term “market capitalization”.

Mr Lloyd Evans, President of the International Federation of Economic Journalists (IFEJ) urged reporters to upgrade their knowledge and understanding of financial matters by reading widely.

Source: GNA