Investors losing direction

FE Report | Published: August 16, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) maintained the bearish trend for the ninth straight week that ended Thursday.

The market failed to regain its steam as the unabated decline in the share price index over the last couple of months forced the investors, rattled by continued slump in shares prices, to rethink about going on fresh buying, according to experts.

All the market barometers - the benchmark DSE General Index (DGEN), All Share Price Index (DSI) and DSE20 - shed 56.94 points, 49.65 points and 11.10 points to close at 2675.07, 2295.95 and 2479.53 respectively on the last trading day of the week.

The benchmark DGEN has lost around 18 per cent to 2675.07 from 3207.89, a record high set on June 1 this year.

"Our market is generally trend-based. So, the investors, shocked by the long bearish spell, felt that the market would go down further, the psychological impact of which had also been felt, leading to a lot of people backing out from buying," said a market expert.

He added that the negative sentiment gripped the investors to such an extent that they even remained unimpressed with the couple of good news of half-yearly healthy corporate earnings by the most of the listed companies and the central bank's directive to raise paid-up capital of the banks.

"Fluctuation in the stock market is a usual phenomenon but the recent happening in the market is a bit unprecedented. It has not only crippled a large number of investors but has also eroded the investors' confidence in the DSE market," he said.

The daily average turnover was also down by 16.53 per cent to Tk 2.18 billion in the week against Tk 2.62 billion previously. The total market capitalisation declined marginally by 1.39 per cent to Tk 938.776 billion from the previous week's Tk 951.99 billion.

On low turnover, officials of the prime bourse and the market regulator expressed the opinion that the market was facing fund crisis because of pulling out of a substantial amount of money by the state-owned Titas Gas and investors' applications for initial public offerings (IPOs), including Grameen One- Scheme Two (Second Scheme of Grameen Mutual Fund One), First Security Bank Limited and Summit Alliance Port Limited.

Trading volume dropped by 4.22 per cent as losers held a strong lead over the gainers. Out of 287 traded issues, share prices of only 31 advanced, 207 declined, 11 remained unchanged and 38 were not traded.

Weighted average price earning (PE) ratio fell 4.84 per cent to 19.61 from the previous 20.61.

The Titas Gas continued to dominate the trading for the second consecutive week as it accounted for 14.08 per cent of the total market turnover at the prime bourse. In the week, shares worth Tk 1.54 billion of Titas were traded.

Beximco Pharma was the second top-turnover leader with shares worth Tk 997.31 million changing hands, accounting for 9.14 per cent of the week's total turnover.

ACI Limited, Beximco Limited, Square Pharma, Lanka Bangla Finance, Keya Cosmetics, BATBC, Islami Bank and Square Textile were the other turnover leaders of the week.

In the week, Modern Industries, a Z-category issue, was the top gainer posting a 44 per cent rise, followed by Anwar Galvanising 32.08 per cent, Fu-Wang Ceramic 18.12 per cent, BD Dyeing 16.00 per cent, Renwic Jajneswar 14.95 per cent, Rahim Textile 12.33 per cent, Monno Stafflers 8.86 and Agni Systems Limited 8.82 per cent.

Federal Insurance, B Monospool Paper, Social Investment Bank, Rahman Chemicals, Trust Bank, 2nd ICB, Apex Tannery, 7th ICB Mutual Fund, Reliance Insurance and Green Delat Insurance were the top losers during the week.