Investors fret as gloom grips stocks

The stock market passed a gloomy week to Thursday, the last week before Eid-ul-Azha, as investors stayed on the sidelines, worried about a potential economic slowdown.
The week saw five trading days as usual with three sessions falling marginally while two other sessions posted modest gain on bargain hunting.
Week on week, DSEX, the key index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), edged down by 9.99 points or 0.16 per cent to settle at 6,366.96, after gaining over 49 points in the week before.
Market operators said the ongoing bearish sentiment triggered a sell-off across the bourse as the energy crisis is deepening and power cuts have become frequent across the country over the last few days.
"Power outage has hit trade, business and economy hard, squeezing industrial production," said a merchant banker, seeking anonymity.
Load-shedding returned after several years as Bangladesh felt the first stirrings of the global energy crisis due to the Russia-Ukraine war.
"If the situation is prolonged, it will impact the factory production badly," he said, adding that the war in Ukraine and its impact on energy supplies are casting a shadow over the global economic outlook.
As the Bangladesh Bank declared a relatively contractionary monetary policy on June 30, investors stuck to their cautious stance amidst ongoing macroeconomic headwinds, he said.
The International Energy Agency said in a report on Tuesday that high prices of natural gas and supply fears due to the war in Ukraine will crimp economic activity, slowing the growth in demand in coming years.
"Most of the investors remained shaky and reluctant to make fresh investments in the stocks ahead of Eid festival as the investors failed to see any clear direction about the future market movement," said International Leasing Securities.
"Natural gas supply shortage hampers the electricity production as well as adversely impacting the manufacturing sector in the country," said the stockbroker.
According to EBL Securities, the market outlook remains gloomy as investors were concerned about several macroeconomic issues namely nationwide power outages, inflationary pressure, depreciating currency and rising Covid-19 cases.
The DS30 Index, which consists of blue-chip companies, dropped 1.82 points to close at 2,293.77. However, the DSES Index, which represents Shariah-based companies, advanced 1.11 points to finish at 1,387.89.
The week's total turnover stood at Tk 38.14 billion on the prime bourse as against Tk 38.57 billion in the week before.
The daily turnover averaged out at Tk 7.62 billion, down 1.13 per cent over the previous week's average of Tk 7.71 billion.
The investors' activities were mostly focused on the textile sector grabbing 14 per cent of the week's total turnover, followed by miscellaneous (11 per cent) and power (9.0 per cent).
Major sectors showed mixed performances. Banking sector suffered the most, losing 1.90 per cent, followed by general insurance (1.90 per cent), pharma (0.70 per cent), engineering (0.20 per cent) and food (0.20 per cent).
On the other hand, telecoms sector saw the highest gain of 3.60 per cent, followed by financial institutions (1.40 per cent), cement (0.70 per cent) and life insurance (0.50 per cent).
Losers took a modest lead over the gainers, as out of 388 issues traded, 187 declined, 168 advanced and 33 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
However, the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) closed marginally higher with the CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) gaining 30 points to settle at 18,751 and its Selective Categories Index (CSCX) rising 11 points to close the week at 11,238.
Of the issues traded, 178 advanced, 145 declined and 24 issues remained unchanged on the CSE trading floor.
The port-city bourse traded 51.09 million shares and mutual fund units with turnover value of Tk 1.41 billion.

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