The country’s stocks have collapsed and witnessed a losing streak for most of the sessions in the current month following the coronavirus scare, experts said.
As a result, worried investors continued their selling spree on sector-wise securities apprehending further dip in the market as investors lose confidence in the threat of coronavirus outbreak.
Although the prime index of the DSE recovered 371 points or more than 10 percent on Thursday, it lost by 1,165 points within a month until Wednesday.
Market analysts said the share markets continued a downward trend as investors were reluctant to inject fresh funds into stocks.
Although the positive momentum, following banks agreeing to invest in stocks from Wednesday after meeting with the Finance Minister on Monday, the reflection was witnessed in the early trading on Wednesday in Stocks, but it failed to sustain as panic-driven investors went to sell-off to escape further losses, they said.
“Besides, poor macroeconomic indicators, dearth of quality stocks, possible impact of the single-digit interest rate on the banking business and liquidity crunch also contributed to the ongoing confidence crisis among investors,” they added.
They informed that the new virus continued spreading globally, which disrupted global supply chain, export and import activities.
Eminent economist and market expert Prof Abu Ahmed told Bangladesh Post, most of the investors panicked after hearing the news of coronavirus cases in Bangladesh and sold continuously their shares to avoid further losses.
Besides, poor macroeconomic indicators, dearth of quality stocks and liquidity crunch worsened the ongoing confidence crisis among investors, he mentioned.
Ahmed said the share market has been going through bad patches due to a drop in foreign investment, fear of instability of the market coupled with thin participation of institutional investors.
The government should immediately prepare the ground well in order to undertake a drive to develop a long-term financing capital market”, he added.
However, DSEX, the prime index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) witnessed a rapid fall to stand at 3974.96 points, down by 16.45 percent or 783 points during one month.
It hit a record 7-year low, the biggest single-day fall since its inception in 2013, to settle at 3,603, shedding 169 points or 4.46 percent on Wednesday as investors sold their shares in apprehension of further fall in share prices.
With the new DSE index decreasing by 279.32 points in a single day’s trading, the country’s stocks on March 9 witnessed a record fall in history triggered by a coronavirus scare after the first three COVID-19 infected cases were reported on March 8.
The DSE prime index decreased by 1,165 points within a month, while it lost by 627 points for four straight sessions following the coronavirus scare on Wednesday.
DSEX decreased by 155 points or 3.75 percent to close at 3,975 during the last week.
However, the prime index of the DSE recovered 371 points or more than 10 percent on Thursday in a 30 minute-trading session due to the circuit breaker system.
Trading at bourses started at 2:00pm, a three hours delay, and continued until 2:30pm, due to setting emergency circuit breaks on stocks.
The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, declined by 55.78 points to close at 1,325 and the DSE Shariah Index went down by 38.35 points to finish at 919 during the last week.
The daily average turnover was Tk 3.14 billion, down nearly 25 percent from the previous week's average of Tk 4.18 billion.
The total turnover on the DSE in the week went down by 39.74 to Tk 12.58 billion in the last session against Tk 20.88 billion the previous day.
The market capitalisation of the DSE also went down to Tk 3,107 billion from Tk 3,213 billion the previous week.
The losers beat the gainers as out of 358 issues traded, 304 ended lower, 45 closed higher and 9 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Square Pharma dominated and became the top on the weekly turnover chart with 3.19 million shares worth Tk 531.27 million changing hands.
It was followed by Monno Ceramic, Grameenphone, Orion Pharma and LafargeHolcim.
Monno Ceramic was the best performer, posting a gain of 7.27 percent while the BIFC was the worst loser, losing 28.57 percent during the week.
Meanwhile, the Chattogram Stock Exchange (CSE) also saw a negative trend during the last week with its selective category index (CSCX) losing nearly 915 points to close at 6,746 points.
On the other hand, all Share Price Index of the CSE was lower by almost 1,509 points to 11,134 points on the week.
At the CSE, total 295 issues were traded. Among them, only 8 closed higher, 282 ended lower and 5 remained unchanged.
However, the number of shares transacted on the floor of the CSE was almost 28.44 million and the total turnover in value was almost Tk 537.34 million on the week.