Newest stock exchange starts trading

Uganda now has two active stock exchanges. The nation’s newest exchange, ALTX East Africa, listed the first securities on its high speed exchange yesterday.

“ALTX has successfully listed 25 debt securities and has so far activated three maturing February 2019, November 2018 and May 2021,” ALTX Chief Executive Officer Joseph Kitamirike said in a statement. “The instruments are currently trading at yields of 14-16% with interest accruing daily.”

ALTX was cleared by the Capital Markets Authority in 2014, and went live in July. It has used the interim period between its launch and today to finalise measures that will protect the financial integrity of participants on its exchange, among other things.

It becomes the second stock exchange to operate in Uganda after the Uganda Securities Exchange, which launched in 1997.

The exchange’s hallmarks are its high speed system which, according to the company, has the capability to handle 150,000 transactions per second and will settle trades in fifteen seconds to five minutes, and its low threshold which sets an investors minimum bid or offer at only Shs10,000 ($2.98).

Initially, it will offer depository receipts backed by government securities issued on the treasury secondary market.

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