Dhaka stocks plunged for the third consecutive day on Thursday, with the general index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, the DGEN, losing 176.09 points, or 2.77 per cent as investors' worry about the country's overall economic condition intensified further.
The DGEN closed the day at 6,164.81 points, posting a loss of around 362 points over the last three trading days.
The turnover of the bourse on Thursday was Tk 867 crore, marking a decline of Tk 197 crore from the Tk 1,064-crore turnover on Tuesday.
Out of the 250 issues traded on Thursday, only 30 advanced, while 217 suffered price falls and two remained unchanged.
Market operators said the alarming economic indicators and the discouraging statement about the Bangladesh Fund made by the International Monitory Fund recently made a huge negative impact on the investors, making them more nervous about their investment.
A news report run by a major vernacular daily on Thursday also deepened the panic among the investors, prompting them to go for heavy sell-offs on the day, they said.
A senior official of a brokerage house said, 'The retail investors have been banking a great deal on the Tk 5,000-crore Bangladesh Fund. But, after the IMF had forecast that it would add a new degree of volatility to the market, their hopes were shattered.'
'Following a news report run by a Bangla daily that the country may be approaching a great economic crisis, the investors went for blanket sell-out, fearing another market debacle,' he observed.
Trading on the DSE started downbeat on Thursday, with the DGEN losing 101 points in the first five minutes. The DGEN curve had continued to nosedive for the next one hour, losing 233 points by 12.10 pm.
At this point, two institutions became active and went for buying shares to support the market.
An insider, however, said, excepting those two, the rest of the institutional investors on Thursday went for heavy sell-offs.
Experts guess the Libyan crisis will also make an adverse impact on the country's economy in the long run.
One of them said, 'As the Bangladeshi expatriate workers are returning from Libya, the country will not only face a shortage of remittance inflow but will also have to support them and their families using domestic resources.'
'The continued price hike of US dollar against taka and the possibility of an intensified credit crunch in the money market would also affect the securities market,' he added.
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