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Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– Bangladesh’s stocks extended the losing streak for the second day in a row on Monday as investors continued their selling binge on large-cap shares.

The financial sector remained volatile with liquidity crunch, soaring interest rate, huge non-performing loans coupled with pressure on the exchange rate that spilled over into the capital market, market operators said.

The government’s market supportive measures including redefine the banks’ capital market exposure to increase the fund flow in the capital market is yet to attract investors amid ongoing liquidity crisis, they added.

The central bank has recently decided in principle to exempt banks’ investments in non-listed companies from capital market exposure, a move that can give banks plenty of room for fresh investments in the stock market.

The market opened on positive note and the key index of the major bourse rose about 10 points within first 20 minutes of trading. But rest of the session went down steadily.

At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,247, losing 26.10 points or 0.49 per cent over the previous session.

Two other induces also ended lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 10.08 points to finish at 1,836 and the DSE Shariah Index shed 8.65 points to close at 1,210.

Turnover, another important indicator of the market, also fell to BDT 3.05 billion, which was 15 per cent lower than the previous day’s turnover of BDT 3.58 billion.

They also the ongoing bearish trend prompted the investors to liquidate their holdings, particularly on telecom, textile, pharma, financial institutions, food and banking sectors which pushed down the index.

The telecommunication sector posted the highest loss of 1.18 per cent, followed by non-bank financial institutions with 1.02 per cent, pharmaceuticals 0.65 per cent, food 0.61 per cent, engineering 0.51 per cent and banking 0.16 per cent.

The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 343 issues traded, 211 declined, 87 advanced and 45 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.

A total number of 81,070 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 104.46 million securities.

The market capitalisation of the DSE also fell to BDT 3,864 billion on Monday, from BDT 3,882 billion in the previous day.

Fortune Shoes continued to top the DSE turnover chart with 2.96 million shares worth nearly BDT 96 million changing hands.

The other turnover leaders were Oimex Electrode, Esquire Knit Composite, DESCO and Indo-Bangla Pharma.
Eastern Cables was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 5.29 per cent while Vanguard AML BD Finance Mutual Fund One was as the worst loser, losing 7.04 per cent.

On the other hand, Chittagong Stock Exchange ended lower with its CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI -shedding 118 points to settle at 16,055 points and the Selective Categories Index – CSCX -losing 70 points to finish at 9,721.

The losers beat gainers, as 147 issues closed lower, 54 ended higher and 19 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 6.84 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than BDT 158 million in turnover.

BBN/SSR/AD