Many empirical studies have analysed the effect of good news and bad news on equity market return volatility using both developed and emerging markets data, with scant literature for frontier stock markets. This study evaluates how news affects stock market return volatility in a frontier market using Uganda data. It specifically analyses the reaction of stock return volatility to news filtering into a frontier market using the exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model on daily data ranging from 1 September 2011 to 31 December 2017. Estimates of the shape parameter from generalized error distribution indicate the existence of leptokurtic return distribution. Results from the exponential GARCH model show that the effect of bad news and good news on the frontier market return volatility differs, thus suggesting existence of leverage effect in the period studied. Overall results from the study suggest that positive news impacts stock market returns volatility more than negative news of the same magnitude. An important implication of our results is that investors, analysts, brokers and dealers should be conscious of the nature of news filtering into the stock market as such information might improve their expected volatility forecast.

Internal control systems and the performance of financial institutions have received much attention in recent times owing to the increased recognition accorded to internal control systems as a source of financial performance. Researchers and practitioners have been increasingly interested in striving to understand how these two notions can be harnessed in order to attain a firm’s success. The aim of the study was to assess the internal control system and the performance of financial institutions in Uganda. The study was guided by specific objectives, which include establishing the relationship between the internal control system and the performance of financial institutions and finding out the relationship between corporative governance and firm performance. A mixed research design was applied to achieve the set objectives utilising both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Using simple random and purposive sampling techniques, a total of 118 respondents were selected to participate in the study. There is a significant positive correlation between the internal control system and firm performance (r = .407; p< 0.01), meaning an increased internal control system in Uganda’s financial institutions is associated with positive firm performance. There is a significant positive correlation between corporate governance and financial performance (r = .649; p< 0.01). This implies that as the level of corporate governance improves, the financial performance of the company tends to improve as well. Thus, financial firms in Uganda should endeavour and put in place functional internal control systems if they are to realise better institutional performance