Weekly Review: Stocks keep falling amid panic driven sell-offs

Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– Bangladesh’s stocks kept losing in the outgoing week as worried investors continued their sell-offs amid growing tension over the impact of coronavirus outbreak.

Week-on-week, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 95.75 points or 2.14 per cent to settle the week at 4,384.

DSEX lost 349 points while DSE market-cap wiped out BDT 225 billion in the two consecutive weeks.

Market analysts said the investors have been suffering from confidence crisis for a long while fear over coronavirus pandemic and possible impact of the single-digit interest rate on the banking business dampened their confidence.

The new virus continued spreading outside Chain and could not be controlled that disrupted global supply chain, export and import activities, said a market analyst.

According to media reports, if the epidemic of coronavirus sustained for a long period, it might hamper Bangladesh’s business activities badly.

China, where the virus outbreak began in late December last year, is the largest supplier of industrial raw materials for readymade garment and other sectors of Bangladesh.

The United States last week also included Bangladesh as a high risk of coronavirus spread and urged the country to take necessary steps.

The central bank’s latest directive on lending rates and the Supreme Court’s order on GP to pay another Tk 10 billion to the telecom regulator also triggered sell-offs in the banking and GP shares.

Fall of large-cap shares like Square Pharma, Grameenphone, United Power, LafargeHolcim and Summit Power played a major role behind the index fall.

Two other indices also closed lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 30.13 points to finish at 1,462 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 28.97 points to close at 1,015.

The outgoing week saw five trading days as usual. Of them, two sessions closed higher while three ended lower.

The weekly total turnover on the DSE stood at BDT 24.10 billion, down from BDT 30.87 billion in the week before.

The daily turnover averaged BDT 4.82 billion, down 22 per cent from the previous week’s average of BDT 6.17 billion.

The market capitalisation of the DSE also fell 1.82 per cent to BDT 3,367 billion on Thursday, from BDT 3,429 billion in the previous week.

Telecom sector suffered most, losing 3.88 per cent, followed by power with 3.36 per cent, engineering 2.50 per cent, food 1.60 per cent, financial institutions 1.51 per cent and banking 1.10 per cent.

Losers outnumbered the gainers, as out of 358 issues traded, 237 closed lower and 97 ended higher while 24 issues remained unchanged on the DSE floor in the outgoing week.

VFS Thread Dyeing dominated the week’s turnover chart with shares worth Tk 613 million changing hands during the week.

Central Pharma was the week’s best performer, posting a gain of 21.01 per cent while the International Leasing & Financial Services was the worst loser, losing 12.82 per cent.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also extended losses with its CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI – shedding 338 points to settle at 13,404 and the Selective Categories Index – CSCX – losing 209 points to finish the week at 8,123.

Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 202 issues closed lower, 76 ended higher and 23 remained unchanged in the outgoing week.

The port city bourse traded 51.61 million shares and mutual fund units worth BDT 922 million in turnover last week.

BBN/SSR/BB