Dhaka stocks witness lowest since Hasina's fall
74% of stocks on Thursday faced price decline amid huge shares selling off
Following the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led government in early August, stocks listed on the Dhaka bourse had significantly surged, driven by blue-chip scrips.
However, within just over two and a half months, the DSEX, the broad index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, ended Thursday with a 1.09% or 58-point drop, staggering to its lowest level since 6 August.
Earlier, a day before the ouster of Hasina, the DSEX ended at 5,229 points with turnover reaching Tk207 crore on 4 August.
Amid the mass protests, Hasina stepped down as the prime minister on 5 August and fled to India. After that, on the first trading day on 6 August, the DSEX soared by 197 points, and turnover jumped to Tk749.99 crore.
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The capital market, however, started passing a downtrend in a few days as institutional investors remained sidelined taking a see-saw stance amid some regulatory punitive actions for share manipulations.
According to the DSE, in the four trading days in the last week (14 to 17 October), the DSEX fell by 164 points and ended at 5,257 points, marking a significant fall over the past weeks.
Yesterday, market participation remained sluggish as cautious investors preferred to remain on the sidelines and monitor the market momentum, with total turnover slightly increasing by 3.6% to Tk306 crore, which was Tk296.34 crore in the previous trading session.
Meanwhile, most of the stocks faced price declines amid shares selling off. Out of the traded stocks on the bourse, 74% of scrip prices declined, 13% of stocks prices advanced, and 12% of scrip prices remained unchanged, according to the DSE.
However, among other indices, the DSE shariah fell by 0.74% or 8.74 points to settle at 1,174 points, and DS30, the blue-chip index fell by 0.90% or 17 points to 1,930 points.
The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also settled on red terrain.
The selected indices (CSCX) and All Share Price Index (CASPI) declined by 87.6 and 150.8 points, respectively.
EBL Securities in its daily market commentary said the bearish vibe on the country's capital bourse continues, with the benchmark index extending its downward trend as the market fails to recover from the enduring pessimism pervading the trading floor due to the dampened confidence of investors amidst an uncertain market outlook."
"The market remained sell-dominant throughout the session as unnerved investors opted to liquidate their holdings to avoid further capital erosion in their already hampered portfolio."
On the sectoral front, bank sector stocks exerted the highest by 22.0% in the total, followed by pharmaceutical by 15.6% and food and allied sector by 11.2%.
Most of the blue-chip index faced price erosion. According to EBL Securities, BRAC Bank dragged the DSEX by 8.4 points, followed by Islami Bank by 5.3 points, and BATBC by 2.8 points.
Pharma Aids topped the gainer list considering the close price on Thursday and the previous day's closing price with a gain by 7.49% to Tk670.1 each, followed by NCC Bank mutual fund-1 by 4% to Tk5.2 each, and GQ Ball pen by 3.80% to Tk133.6 each.
On the other hand, Sikder Insurance was the top loser as its shares price fell by 9.17% to Tk19.8 each, followed by Tosrifa Industries by 8.55% to Tk20.3 each, and Bangladesh Shipping Corporation by 8.26% to Tk63.3 each.
Agni Systems was the top-traded stock on the Dhaka bourse as its shares trading value was Tk22.80 crore, followed by Lovello at Tk19.21 crore and BRAC Bank at Tk10.25 crore.
