/IRBIS, Oct.17, 00/ - By the decision of the Board of the Kazakhstan stock exchange (KASE), dated October 12, 2000, changes were made into normative document of the Exchange "Computation methods of the KASE index". Its initial version, which was approved by the decision of the KASE Board on September 19, 2000 and based on the decision of the Exchange board, dated September 18, went into effect from September 19, 2000.

The changes are principal, and required the specialist of the Exchange to recalculate the KASE Index starting from the base date - July 12, 2000.

The following remained unchanged. The basis for the KASE index are values of the shares from official list of KASE of category "A", that are quoted daily in the Trade system of the Exchange. The index are computed from September 19, 2000 based on the best bids (bid quotations) put out by the market-makers of the shares. It is believed that the index equal to 100 is registered at the KASE on July 12, 2000. Percentage change in the index will show average percentage change of the bid prices relative to July 12, 2000. The "weight" of each share - degree of influence of its quotations on the index - is determined on the basis of its proportion in market capitalization controlled by the share. The more the proportion of market capitalization controlled by the share, the higher the influence it has on the index. The change in the list of shares used to calculate the index will take place automatically when the official list "A" for the shares with the market-makers changes. If the list of securities changes, the index will be corrected correspondingly by computing correction coefficient that ensures the compatibility of a new and old capitalization coefficients from the moment when the list changed. In this case the ratio between the index calculated for previous day and the index calculated for the previous day, that includes the changes in the list of securities used to calculate the index, is computed.

The changes in the methods concern the following. Previously, the change in the index reflected the modification of the bid quotations relative to previous day, and now - relative to July 12, 2000. When all quotations return to the level observed on July 12, 00 after a temporary growth or decrease, the index calculated in previous manner could not equal to 100. With the new calculation method return of all quotations to their base level will cause the index to return, correspondingly, which, in the opinions of the Exchange's specialists, is more clearly reflects the dynamics of the prices on the market. By the new method the index for the current day is the quotient expressed in percents which resulted in the division of the calculation coefficient by the number of shares used to calculate the index. Calculation coefficient is the sum of values calculated for each share: ratio of purchase price of the current day to similar figure of previous day raised to a certain power, with the power being the share's market capitalization coefficient, which is calculated by the formula given in the Methods.

The accuracy of the index is four decimal places.

More details of the document "Computation methods of the KASE index" can be found on the Internet ( see more

As before, the KASE plans to publish this index in the mass media and on its web-site (www.kase.kz) once a day by the results of the day. Later, if the market gets more active the index will be monitored continuously.

After closing of the securities trades at the Exchange on October 16, the KASE index decreased by 0.8274 relative to previous day, at 99.6490. Within a day the change in the index was due to a decrease in bid prices of:

• common shares of Kazakhtelecom from $16.00 to $15.00 per share;
• preferred shares of UKTMK OJSC - from $30.00 to $5.00;
• common shares of Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan - from $1.1000 to $0.9110;
• common shares of Bank CenterCredit OJSC - from $1.1629 to $1.1601.

Following is the table of the KASE index at closing of the trades during the last ten days corrected by the new method.

---------   --------   -------
Date Date      Index     Trend
---------   --------   -------
Oct.3.00    100.0006         0
Oct.4.00    100.7598   +0.7592
Oct.5.00     99.3931   -1.3667
Oct.6.00    100.9196   +1.5265
Oct.9.00     99.2832   -1.6364
Oct.10.00   100.7614   +1.4782
Oct.11.00   100.0000   -0.7614
Oct.12.00   100.0223   +0.0223
Oct.13.00   100.4737   +0.4514
Oct.16.00    99.6490   -0.8247
---------   --------   -------