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Eight treasury bonds and bills have changed hands on the secondary market in the last 19 working days since the trading was allowed on October 10.
A total of 250 treasury bills and bonds, with tenures of two to 20 years, were tradable on that day with a market capitalisation of Tk 316,808 crore.
It ended a wait of over a decade and offered one more investment tool to retail investors of the Dhaka and Chattogram stock exchanges who are reliant on only shares and mutual funds.
However, experts say the volume of the secondary trade was not up to the mark.
Adequate advertisements have not been run to attract people and demand has not been created, said Shaikh Shamsuddin Ahmed, a commissioner of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC).
“In the absence of adequate advertisements, some people spread rumours that investors will need to take permission from the stock market regulator to buy the securities,” he said.
“But, in reality, investors can buy these through their beneficiary owners’ accounts like shares,” he said.
“We need to make people aware that the securities can give them a fixed income over the years and these are well secured,” he added.
The BSEC commissioner was addressing a discussion titled “The Basics on Government Securities and Trading on the Exchange Platform” organised by the Dhaka Stock Exchange on its premises on Wednesday.
Banks and financial institutions are the main investors of the government securities and they are mainly conducting trade through the central bank instead of the stock exchange platform, said M Shaifur Rahman Mazumdar, managing director (acting) of the DSE.
Until the institutional investors trade the securities on the bourse platform, the debt trading board will not witness movements as per expectations, he added.
Representatives of primary dealers present at the event pointed out some problems such as low knowledge of brokers on the securities’ valuation, high tax and brokerage commission and lengthy trade settlement periods.
After the government securities became tradable, market capitalisation of the DSE to the GDP rose to 18 per cent from the previous 15 per cent, said Md Eunusur Rahman, chairman of the Dhaka bourse.
Now the stock investors can grab the benefits of investing in fixed securities, he said.
The present commission is trying to ensure product diversification in the market and institutional investors and general investors need to respond positively, he added.
(TDS)
