More bad news from board rooms

Amid the investors' dwindling expectation for the recovery of corporate earnings after the shutdown, most companies posted bad news on Thursday from their board rooms.     

The latest earnings of the July-September quarter disclosed at the trading screen over the day have been pointing to the slower pace of recovery in businesses of local listed companies. 

Until 6 pm, 24 listed companies from various sectors posted their quarterly financials following their respective board meetings. 

Of them, 10 disclosed losses in the post-lockdown quarter. They are Hamid Fabrics, Evince Textile, Khulna Printing and Packaging, Gemini Sea Food, Prime Textile, Standard Ceramic, Generation Next Fashions, StyleCraft, Oimex Electrode and Zaheen Spinning Ltd. 

All but Standard Ceramic and Khulna Printing made profits over the same period in 2019. 

Only Six companies that include Square Pharmaceuticals, IT Consultants Ltd, Anlima Yarn Dyeing, Khulna Printing and Apex Foods could avert deterioration in a year-on-year profit picture. 

Since the yarn dyeing and printing company merely reduced losses compared to those the same quarter a year ago, only four profit-making companies made higher profits in the quarter. 

Around two-thirds of the listed companies saw deterioration in earnings for the April-June quarter due to the pandemic and the nationwide 66-day shutdown. 

Analysts are happy with multinational and some local blue-chip companies as they appear to be recovering faster than others from the shutdown shocks. 

Most financial companies from the banking and insurance industry also experienced year-on-year growth in the July-September quarter with some industry boosts. 

But the picture of local service companies and manufacturers both for export and local market looks gloomy as until Wednesday near the half disclosed quarterly degrowth in earnings compared with that a year ago. 

As the Thursdays' disclosures of corporate earnings were dominated by deteriorating ones, the picture appears gloomier, especially in the cases of average local companies.  

However, the weekend offers stock investors at least something to cheer about – the market closed a little higher following a weeklong correction. 

The Dhaka Stock Exchange's broad-based index DSEX closed at 4,905 with a 0.44% daily gain. 

The market, apparently bottoming out from the long term trough of the mid-2020, still attracts a large number of investors because of its gain potentials and increased confidence in regulators, market-friendly policies being floated in recent months. 

Turnover at the DSE increased to Tk988 crore from Tk975 crore on the previous session.