By David Mugabe

THE Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) moved sh1.29b in turnover dominated by mainly the Umeme (sh1.26b) stock last Friday.

This was one of the biggest deals since the Umeme listing in 2012 as the year rolled off with top executives expressing a positive outlook for the market in 2013. 

The power distributor traded 4.41 million shares with the price escalating between sh277 to sh280 and finally closing at sh285 as institutional investors weighed in to mop up the excess liquidity created by anxious sellers in the past few weeks.

Umeme was, however, inactive on Tuesday this week, with the power firm counter witnessing bids of over one million shares that were again not matched with the 6.9 million shares demand.

The weighted average price settled at sh300. A statement from Crested Stocks Securities put demand at an average of sh280 per share for over 2.9 million shares not matching the supply at 138,965 offered at sh300.

The counter to look forward to is Baroda, as the bank prepares to offer bonus shares in the ratio of 1.5 shares for every share held at sh10 per share in February.

“We expect continued investor interest on Stanbic, Umeme and Bank of Baroda counters,” read the statement from Crested Stocks.

On Tuesday this week, Stanbic again was the big mover, selling over one million shares and picking sh25.9m in turnover. Stanbic also had unfulfilled bid of over 18 million shares.

The bank, the most liquid in recent years, remains an attractive stock with one of the best price offers at sh25 per share, but also riding on a largely attractive banking sector. Infact, all the three companies that sold shares on Tuesday were from the banking sector.

The other banks were dfcu Bank that sold 4,200 shares to realise sh4.2m in turnover, while Baroda sold 19,648 shares to pick sh5.5m in turnover.

Overall, turnover settled at sh35.6m, with a total of over one million shares sold.