David Mugabe
3 December 2008
Kampala — The lack of institutional players coupled with a dull end-of-year mood has left trading to small time retailers, a development that together with the current global financial down turn has drastically slowed business at the exchange.
"We just have to go through the festive season and then come back and wait and see," said Mr. Kenneth Kitariko, general manager, African Alliance, a brokerage firm in East Africa.
Industry experts believe that even the first quarter of the new year shall be slow until perhaps banks begin declaring their dividends round about end of March that interests will begin to rise again.
Information available indicates that NSSF, one of the biggest institutional movers on the local bourse has been silent on the floor and now "the market is being dominated by retail sellers and buyers" who generally move very small volumes.
A market report from African Alliance indicates that with the continuous volatility on the market, the USE All Share Index market fell by 3.5% to close at 721.68 points.
By comparison, about the same time last year (December 4, 2007), the All Share Index stood at 1008.26 and 578 million shares were traded as opposed to 871831 shares traded on Tuesday (December 2).
Industry sources also say due to the uncertainty created by the global panic that sipped into the Ugandan market a couple of weeks back, investors, mainly buyers took a cautious halt as they monitored the movement of different counters.
Trade reports indicate that Stanbic Bank Ltd was the mid week's top trader moving over 647,274 shares, but the counter also reported the largest price decline sh140 (6.7%) on the exchange from the opening Monday trading price of sh150.
Uganda Clays Ltd continued fell to sh135 down from Monday's closing price of Ush140.
New Vision dropped 1.9% to close at sh1510 down from Monday's trading of sh1540.
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