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The country’s prime bourse, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), on Monday plunged below the 5,000-point mark, the lowest in 31 months, as panicked sale continues fearing further fall.
The key index lost 67.31 points on the day while it lost 97 points the day before. For the first time in the last 2.7 years the index went below the 5,000-mark. On December 22, 2016, the index had dipped as low as 4956.73 points.
The day’s trend, however, showed positive movement after the second trading hour and it continued with a slow pace till the end.
At the end of the day, the index closed red at 4,966.44 levels with 1.34% decrease from the previous day. The broad index of DSE-DSEX also fell 96.95 points on Sunday, the biggest single-day slump in the last 17 months.
After the trading closed at 2:30pm on the day, small investors held a rally in front of the Dhaka Stock Exchange building at Motijheel under the banner of Bangladesh Pujibazar Biniogkari Oikya Parishad, a platform of capital market investors.
Turnover rose to Tk464 crore, which was 26% higher than the previous day’s turnover of Tk368 crore. The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 353 issues traded, 277 closed lower, 60 advanced and 16 issues remained unchanged on the DSE.
Other side, the port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also saw sharp decline with its CSE All Share Price Index- CASPI falling 200 points to settle at 15,215 and the Selective Categories Index CSCX losing 115 points to closed at 9,257.
Market operators say the investors are panicked as the market has been falling for the last 21 working days, loosing around 412.71 points.
For this, they blame several issues such as penalty tax on listed companies, gas price hike, and liquidation and trading suspension of a non-bank financial institution.
The stakeholders of stock market think that lapses in regulatory and enforcement matters have led investors to continue their selling spree amid lack of confidence.
Meanwhile, liquidity crisis, rising nonperforming loans in the banking sector and the Grammenphone issue have continued to haunt the investors’ sentiment, say market observers.
EBL Securities in its daily market commentary said: “Investors started their trading with a distinct lack of confidence on the market owing to Sunday’s fall. From the very beginning, panicked investors exerted serious selling pressure resulting in 108 points drop in the first hour. However, the market recovered slightly towards the end.”
The capital market investors in Dhaka have continued their protests for the three consecutive week against gradual fall of key indices of the stock market.
Blaming incumbent chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to bring back normalcy to the market, Pujibazar Biniogkari Oikya Parishad reiterated their demand for his resignation.
The stock investors have suffered huge losses due to continued price fall over the last few months.
On Thursday, a section of capital market investors demanded immediate intervention of the prime minister to check the fall.
The demand was placed by Pujibazar Biniogkari Oikya Parishad to the Prime Minister’s Office following demonstration in front of the Dhaka Stock Exchange at Motijheel in the city during trade hours.
The Parishad President Mizan-ur-Rashid Chowdhury told Dhaka Tribune: “We have submitted a memorandum with a 15-point demand to the prime minister in our last efforts to survive by saving our investments. We hope that PM will consider a positive outlook to fulfill our demands.”
On Sunday, the securities regulator BSEC yesterday formed a four-member inquiry committee headed by its director Rejaul Karim to investigate the role of intermediaries in the current bearish market.
The committee will also look into the unusual price movement of listed securities. The inquiry committee was asked to submit a report within 15 working days.
(DT)
