Political unrest hits stock market

Stocks ended lower Monday with falling turnover as panic-driven investors rushed to book profit amid political unrest across the country.
Trading started as usual  at 10.30am, but presence of investors at the brokerage houses was thin as mass transports in the Dhaka city was almost halted fearing political uncertainty.
The market opened with a negative note and the downturn continued throughout the session. At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange went down by 15.10 points or 0.30 per cent to close at 4,926.40 points.
However, the two other indices managed to close positive. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips gained 1.23 points or 0.06 per cent to close at 1,844.42 points. The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) rose 2.29 points or 0.19 per cent to stand at 1,176.31 points.
Turnover came down to Tk 2.04 billion, registering a decline of 10.13 per cent over the previous session's value of Tk 2.27 billion.
"The stock market ended negative tune on the first trading day of the week amidst decreased participation from the investors," said International Leasing Securities in an analysis.

Early downturn pattern sustained as investors' watchful sentiment on the ongoing political strain throughout the country has been reflected on the trading session, said the International Leasing.
IDLC Investments said: "Political unrest left its impact on market, turning down DSEX by 15.1 points to close at 4,926.4 points".
"As the tension in the political front prevailed, investors remained indecisive and were searching for safe zone and mild level of profit booking took place,' said the merchant bank.
On the other hand, some investors were accumulating few stocks on better earnings expectation. But, turnover did not improve sequentially, settling at Tk 2.0 billion level, the merchant bank said.
The investors were more focused on large-cap stocks and centralized their portfolio to power and engineering sectors, it added.
LankaBangla Securities said: "The investors' sentiment dampened throughout the trading session as noise on the political front seemed to get louder".
Morning trading dissipated previous day's gain as panic-prone investors rushed to book profit, said the stock broker.
Recent political debacle is casting a larger shadow as market remains unresponsive due to overriding influence of political fear, said Zenith Investments.
"While the stock market performed modestly bad during the end of 2014, a new market paradigm remains to be seen at the start of year 2015, that is, if the recent political tension turns out to be a passing fad," said Zenith Investments.
All the major sectors ended in red except telecommunication which gained marginally by 0.75 per cent. Banks and power lost 1.10 per cent and 0.83 per cent respectively.
NBFIs, food and allied and pharmaceuticals also lost 0.73 per cent, 0.55 per cent and 0.38 per cent respectively.
The losers took a lead over the gainers as out of 303 issues traded, 186 declined, 86 advanced and 31remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Activities decreased in the major bourse where trade and volume were down 14.46 per cent and 20.78 per cent respectively. A total of 0.057 million trades were executed with trading volume of 44.67 million securities.
The market capitalisation on DSE stood at Tk 3,288.02 billion against Tk 3,293.56 billion in the previous session.
Lafarge Surma Cement was the most traded stock with shares worth Tk 191.66 million changing hands followed by Saif Powertec, GP, Western Marine and MJL BD.
Saif Powertec was the day's top gainer, posting a rise of 7.60 per cent while Shahzibazar Power was the day's worst loser, plunging 9.28 per cent.
The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed lower with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX - lost 34.32 points to close at 9,131.36 points.
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