The capital market in Bangladesh witnessed a topsy-turvy week, as majority of stocks faced severe corrections owing to investors’ apathy to stay in the market amid macroeconomic uncertainties as well as political tensions.
Except for a single session, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the country’s premier bourse, saw very dismal trading throughout the week as investors were nervous and rushed to safeguard their funds.
Even, the DSE’s prime hit a four-month low on Wednesday due to investors’ selloff rush as they wanted to shun further capital erosion.
The free fall of stocks made investors panicked, as per stockbrokers, leading them to dump their shares to avert further losses amid the downward market momentum.
The DSEX, the broad index of the Dhaka bourse, suffered 42.4 points, or 0.7 per cent, to settle at 6,255 at the end of the week.
Turnover, another crucial market indicator, plunged by 10.1 per cent to Tk 372 crore compared to Tk 414 reported in the previous week.
Investors were mostly active in the food and allied stocks, with the sector topping the turnover chart with a contribution of 19.9 per cent of the total weekly turnover of the prime bourse, followed by miscellaneous (9.8 per cent) and general insurance (9.3 per cent).
The benchmark index of the capital bourse remained shackled to pessimistic territory for four consecutive weeks as anxious investors engaged in panic sell-offs to safeguard their capital from further erosion in the sliding market, said EBL Securities, a stockbroker, in its weekly market review.
The market continued to experience subdued sentiment this week as risk-averse investors lowered their capital market exposure owing to dwindling confidence stemming from the recent political uncertainty ahead of the upcoming national elections along with the prevalent macroeconomic uncertainties, it added.
The intense selling pressure, however, calmed down in the week’s final session as investors anticipated some positive outcomes from regulatory meetings with stakeholders and opportunistic investors sought to acquire positions in selective issues that had undergone significant corrections and traded at a lucrative price, which helped the market partially mitigate a portion of the incurred losses, EBL Securities further said.
The market performed four sessions this week, with the market starting on a negative note of 0.15 per cent on Sunday, and remained negative on Monday with 0.49 per cent loss, and on Wednesday with 0.58 per cent fall.
The market, however, closed positive on Thursday with a gain of 0.55 per cent.
As per the weekly market review of Brac-epl Stock Brokerage, all the financial sectors registered negative performance this week, with the life insurance experiencing the highest loss of 2.72 per cent, followed by general insurance (0.80 per cent), bank (0.20 per cent), NBFI (0.07 per cent), and mutual fund (0.02 per cent).
Fu Wang Food Ltd was the week’s most traded stock with Tk 89 crore worth of its shares changing hands, followed by Sea Pearl Beach Resort and Spa Limited, and Sonali Paper and Board Mills Limited.
Simtex Industries Limited rose 12.72 per cent to become the week’s top gainer, while Imam Button Industries Ltd fell 6.68 per cent, becoming the week’s worst sufferer.
