Hundreds of angry investors took to the streets in the Bangladesh financial district of Motijheel once again to protest a slump in share prices on Sunday.
They expressed solidarity with today’s countrywide dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the main opposition BNP.
Starting on a negative note, the General Index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) came down to 6,719 points, registering a 406 points or 5.7 percent fall at the end of a four-hour trading session.
The market remained in the red for the third consecutive trading session with a cumulative drop of 590 points.
Angry investors streamed into the street in front of the premier bourse at about 12:20pm shortly after the General Index fell by more than 300 points.
They set fire to paper and wood, and blocked the road from Shapla Chattar to Ittefaq crossing, bringing traffic in the area to a halt for more than three hours.
Vehicular movement on the road resumed at about 3:45pm after the law enforcers dispersed the protesters.
The protesters were more focused on chanting slogans against the finance minister and the central bank governor than the market regulator or bourse authorities.
Some of them were calling for a “non-stop hartal” from today until the market rebounds to a satisfactory level.
BNP called the nationwide hartal today to press for a number of demands including withdrawal of cases filed against party chief Khaleda Zia and others over the Munshiganj clash, probe into the recent stockmarket crash and bringing the market manipulators to book.
The investors took to the streets the last time on January 20. The market nosedived 587 points in five minutes into the start of trading that day, despite having a circuit breaker to stop trading if the index dropped 225 points.
Market insiders said sale pressure began to mount from the opening bell making the retail investors jittery.
The downtrend was fuelled further by margin calls, and in some cases by forced or trigger sales by the institutions that provide margin loans, a market insider said.
“The institutions called for additional funds from the investors who trade on credit, as their portfolio value came down to the lowest level. If they do not deposit additional funds against their portfolio, the institutions will have to go for a trigger sale to get the credit. Some of them have already done that,” the person said, wishing anonymity.
The credit providers will be left with no alternative but to go for trigger sales unless the market bounces back. If the downtrend continues, many other institutions will do that, he added.
Referring to trigger sales, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Ziaul Haque Khondker said: “We will look into the matter and also try to find out any solution to avoid the trigger sales.”
The investors looked jittery from the start on the trading floor. Panic sale quickened the slump with most sectors falling more than 5 percent. The day’s turnover stood at Tk 705 crore, 4.26 percent lower than previous trading session.
Losers outnumbered gainers by 238 to 13, with four securities remaining unchanged on the DSE that traded more than 5.87 crore shares and mutual fund units.
Trading will continue tomorrow from 11:00am as usual, if enough members log in to the main server. It is mandatory that at least one third of the active members log in to begin trading.
Read the original story on The Daily Star
