THE IMPACT OF MARKET-ORIENTED REFORMS ON STOCK PRICE MOVEMENTS: SECTOR-BASED EVIDENCE FROM UZBEKISTAN

Abstract

The study investigated whether market-oriented reforms in Uzbekistan were reflected in the behaviour of stock prices across economic sectors. The author used firm-level data on 85 companies listed on the Uzbek Stock Exchange for 2024, grouped them by industry and classified annual price movements as rises, falls or no change. A chi-square test of independence assessed sectoral differences in performance, and the analysis was carried out in Python. The results showed that price movements were distributed unevenly across sectors, which pointed to differentiated market responses linked to varying degrees of state participation and reform exposure. The conclusion set out the value of stock market indicators for assessing reform effectiveness and outlined the further data that would strengthen such assessment.