The Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) recorded ETB 510.05 million in equity turnover for the week of September 28 to October 2, 2026, across 525 trades and 215,325 shares in its seven listed securities. The half-billion-birr total is the headline. Underneath it, the week was mostly the story of one stock trading heavily and six trading very little.
Awash Bank (AWAB) changed hands on about 200,000 shares over the five sessions, roughly 93% of weekly volume. At prices between ETB 2,374 and ETB 2,500, that comes to an estimated ETB 499 million, or about 98% of the value traded. The other six securities together contributed an estimated ETB 10 to 11 million.
One Tuesday, Most of the Week
Activity was concentrated in time as well as in one name. Monday was quiet, with 3,757 shares traded. On Tuesday, volume jumped to 132,296 shares, and 129,431 of them were Awash Bank shares as the stock rose 5.44% to ETB 2,500. Tuesday alone accounted for an estimated ETB 325 million, close to two-thirds of the week’s turnover.
Activity cooled for the rest of the week but stayed well above Monday’s level:
| Session | Shares traded | AWAB share of volume |
|---|---|---|
| Mon, Sep 28 | 3,757 | 39% |
| Tue, Sep 29 | 132,296 | 98% |
| Wed, Sep 30 | 31,377 | ~74% |
| Thu, Oct 1 | 30,230 | 96% |
| Fri, Oct 2 | 17,665 | 95% |
| Week | 215,325 | ~93% |
Awash Holds at ETB 2,500
After Tuesday’s move, Awash Bank stayed at ETB 2,500 for the rest of the week. On Wednesday it opened, closed and hit its low at that level, with an intraday high of only ETB 2,505. On Thursday and Friday it moved by three birr cents and two birr cents respectively, while trading 28,903 and 16,847 shares.
A large volume of trades at an unchanged round-number price usually means there is deep interest sitting at that level. This could be a sizeable seller supplying stock at ETB 2,500. The exchange data does not identify counterparties, so the week cannot settle which explanation is correct. What it does show is that most of the market’s liquidity is coming from transactions in a single bank’s shares at a single price.
Measured from Monday’s close, Awash finished the week up about 5.3%.
Thin Trading, Large Swings
For the rest of the board, the main analytical issue was how few shares were behind each price move.
Abay Bank (ABAYB) was the clearest case. On Wednesday it fell 7.21% on about 1,000 shares, its busiest session of the week by a wide margin. On Thursday it rose 15.06% to ETB 1,388 on just two shares. That second print was enough to make it the week’s best performer: Abay closed Friday about 13% above Monday’s level. Most of that gain came from a trade worth less than ETB 3,000.
Wegagen Bank (WGBX) followed a similar pattern. It gained 6.77% on Wednesday and gave back 6.74% on Thursday on 24 shares. It ended the week at ETB 1,198, after not trading at all on Monday or Friday.
Gadaa Bank (GDAB) fell 7.34% on Monday on 100 shares and then recovered modestly. It finished at ETB 1,015 after recording zero volume on two of the five days.
Sidama Bank (SIDAX), the newest listing, debuted on Monday at ETB 1,300 on nine shares. It did not trade again during the week.
These moves are genuine prices, but they reflect very little trading. When a 15% change can come from two shares, the closing price indicates where the last small order was matched. It says little about what a meaningful position in the bank is worth. For investors, the practical point is that the price shown on the screen and the price at which a larger position could actually be bought or sold may be quite different for most of the listed banks.
Ethio Telecom: Steady Trading, Weaker Price
Ethio Telecom (TELE) was the only security other than Awash to trade every day in four-digit or larger volumes. It turned over roughly 11,600 shares over the week, most of them (about 6,600) on Wednesday, when it fell 3.58%. The stock closed Friday at ETB 430.10, down from ETB 455 at Monday’s close, which is a decline of about 5.5%.
Even so, Telecom’s estimated ETB 5 million in weekly value was about 1% of the market total. The country’s most widely held listed company currently generates a small fraction of the turnover produced by one bank.
Bank of Abyssinia (BOAX) was the most stable of the active names. It traded on every session, rose on three of the five days, and closed at ETB 1,821, up about 1.3% on the week.
The Money Market Comparison
The equity figures look different when set beside the interbank money market. The ESX’s interbank platform handled ETB 37.1 billion over the same week, about 73 times the value traded in equities.
Seven-day placements made up most of this: ETB 30.88 billion across 32 trades at a weighted average rate of 12.98%, down 2 basis points. Overnight lending totalled ETB 6.23 billion across 11 trades at 12.79%, down 21 basis points. The average interbank trade was about ETB 863 million. The average equity trade was just under ETB 1 million.
The slight decline in rates suggests that bank liquidity conditions were stable to marginally easier during the week. Rates close to 13% also matter for equities: they set the return that bank shares have to compete with for institutional money.
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