Ahmed Shawki
Retail investors became jittery again as the bearish run of the Dhaka Stock Exchange continued for the fourth week in the past week as all government measures to stabilise the market failed.
Market operators said liquidity crisis hit the market once again as the institutional investors remained reluctant to make investment aiming to purchase shares at cheap rates once the market falls further.
The benchmark general index of the DSE or DGEN lost 125.41 points, or 2.12 per cent, to close at 5,800.94 points in the past week as the panic-stricken retail investors went for heavy sell- offs fearing another debacle.
The trading on the bourse began on a positive note on Sunday with the DGEN gaining by a whopping 463.27 points, or 7.81 per cent, following a massive 346.85-point rise on February 15, the last trading day in the previous week. Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith’s ‘positive remarks’ inspired some of the investors to hold on to their stocks for the time being.
These abrupt rises generated a scope for many investors, who wanted to leave the market after the DGEN had fallen by around 1,100 points in the previous two weeks, to minimise their losses.
The selling pressure from retail investors willing to leave the market and the inactivity of the institutional investors grounded the expectation of the optimistic investors and made them more panicky and jittery.
As a result, the DGEN plunged by 216.23 points, or 3.38 per cent, on Tuesday. There was no trading on the burse on Monday on the occasion of the International Mother Language Day.
The retail investors intensified sale pressure on Wednesday as the index went down further by 154.90 points, or 2.50 per cent.
Following the declining trend of two days the general investors, who were still banking on the government assurance of stabilising the market, became terrified and went for heavy sell-offs on Thursday. The DGEN slid 217.54 points, or 3.61 per cent.
The slide of the DGEN in three days at a stretch, made many investors angry and frustrated about the government measures.
They blasted the government saying that the government’s ‘trick’ of stabilising the market with just ‘empty words and fancy directives’ will not work anymore.
Although the government asked the state-run commercial banks to purchase shares and allocated a Tk 200-crore fund to the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh, the measures failed.
Market operators said the banks and the ICB had bought a small volume of shares and their efforts were insufficient to stabilise the market.
They said that because of liquidity crisis, the average daily turnover on the DSE came down by 3 per cent to only around Tk 668 crore.
Out of the total 261 issues traded, 202 declined, 57 advanced and 2 remained unchanged.
Market operators said that the situation at the different brokerage houses remained volatile and the investors might explode in anger if the down-trend on the bourse continues this week.
Read the original story on the New Age
http://newagebd.com/newspaper1/business/9542.html
