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Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh’s stocks witnessed sharp decline last week that ended on Thursday as investors sold shares, fearing further fall of share prices.
Analysts said shrinking of foreign investment, fear of political turmoil ahead of national election coupled with thin participation of institutional investors behind the market fall.
Following the sharp fall of indices in the first two days of the week, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission held an urgent meeting on Tuesday to find out reasons behind the market fall.
After the meeting, the securities regulator urged investors to stay calm as there is virtually no reason behind the recent sharp fall.
The week featured five trading days as usual. Of them, first two sessions lost more than 130 points while last three sessions recovered 31 points.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down nearly 100 points or 1.85 percent to settle the week at 5,282 points.
Two other indices also ended lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 20 points to close at 1,876 and the DSE Shariah Index plunged 19.75 points to end at 1,223.
Bearish sentiment also reflected on the trading activities as total turnover on the DSE came down to BDT 20.47 billion which was BDT 25.51 billion in the week before.
The daily turnover averaged BDT 4.09 billion, registering a fall of 20 percent over the previous week’s average of BDT 5.10 billion.
According to International Leasing Securities, the gloomy market outlook kept investors anxious which resulted a big fall of indices.
The stockbroker noted that the shaky investors opted to liquidate their holding of shares to avoid further losses which contributed to the big plunge in indices.
Among the major sectors, engineering witnessed the highest correction of 3.84 percent, followed by power with 2.98 percent, food 2.97 percent, banking 1.38 percent, pharma 0.88 percent and financial institutions 0.46 percent.
Telecommunication sector posted the highest gain of 5.34 percent riding on Grameenphone (GP) as its share price surged by 5.0 percent to close at BDT 383 each.
Of the 346 traded issues, 262 closed lower, 63 ended higher and 21 issues remained unchanged on the DSE floor last week.
Khulna Power Company topped the week’s turnover chart with 9.51 million shares worth BDT 1.13 billion changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were Summit Power, Delta Life Insurance, Dragon Sweater and Beximco.
Advent Pharma was the week’s best performer, posting a gain of 12.87 percent while newly listed Indo-Bangla Pharma was the worst loser, losing 25.51 percent.
The port city’s bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also saw a substantial loss with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI –plunging by 290 points to settle at 16,247.
The Selective Categories Index - CSCX – also slumped 177 points to close the week at 9,843.
BBN/SSR/SR