Unmet demand persists at Uganda stock market

Monday January 17, 2011

A huge unmet share demand on the local financial counters charecterised the market in the first two days of trading this week.

The Stanbic bank counter was in demand with 21 million share-bids going begging.

A similar situation was witnessed on the Bank of Baroda and NIC counters, with two million and one million bids respectively unmatched.

While posting the highest turnover of sh111m on Tuesday, Stanbic shares held steady at sh270.

NIC too remained unchanged at sh70 as did Baroda at sh530 and Uganda Clays at sh50. New Vision shares ended the day steady at sh545.

Turnover was down about 25% to sh155m from the same time last week when shares worth sh190m changed hands.

There was a jump in the all share index on the back of higher share prices by cross listed companies fuelled mainly by a weakening shilling.

The shilling hit an all time low of sh2,341 against the dollar on the inter bank market.

Corporate demand from the telecommunication and oil sectors has been applying pressure on the shilling since the beginning of the year amidst tight dollar supply.

Analysts suggest lower coffee receipts and multinational demand for hard currency to make dividend payments to their shareholders are the key drivers of the shilling trend.