The Cambodia Securities Exchange has seen a sharp decrease in action this week, with trading volume yesterday falling to 3,453 shares, down nearly 100 per cent from Monday. Despite the drop, which was accompanied by a strong shift from institutional to retail investors, experts have stressed the time and patience required for a fledgling market – one with a single stock traded – to find its feet.

The relatively high opening price for public utility Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority contributed to the declining volume of trades, insiders said.

PPWSA closed at 8,800 riel (US$2.18) yesterday, down 4.86 per cent, near to the exchange’s mandated 5-per-cent trading range for the stock.More than 590,900 shares went unsold yesterday, with close to 1 million unexecuted the day before.“At the original price, there were some big profits for some early investors,” Dao Duy Anh, deputy chief executive at Cambodia-Vietnam Securities, said yesterday.

“This is one of the first [investment opportunities] available to the Cambodian people, and there was a lot of excitement during the first days.”

From the initial public offering price of $1.57, PPWSA peaked at $2.55 last Friday.The price, Dao Duy Anh said, started high. After a quick transfer from institutional to retail investors, traders were bound to wait for prices closer to regional price-to-earnings ratios, he said.On Wednesday, PPWSA traded on a price-to-earnings ratio of 28, “significantly above regional comparables”, according to an SBI Royal Securities report yesterday.