Stocks bleed for seven days

Stocks extended the losing streak for seven days in a row until Thursday as the jittery investors continued to off-load their shares despite regulatory efforts to stop the market fall.
Following the previous six days' major fall, the market opened sharply lower and tried to recover in the mid-day. But late hours' selling pressure kept the market down, ultimately ending over 51 points lower.
DSEX, the key index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), slid 51.66 points or 0.81 per cent to settle at 6,258, lowest in more than 10 months since July 12, 2021. DSEX shed over 440 points in seven straight sessions.
The market capitalisation also shed Tk 309 billion in the just seven days to come down to Tk 5,098 billion Thursday as investors sold large-cap shares throughout the week.
Two other indices also ended lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 19.80 points to finish at 2,316 and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) shed 8.46 points to close at 1,383.
Turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, also fell further to Tk 6.68 billion, which was 12 per cent lower than the previous day's tally of Tk 7.62 billion.
Market operators said multiple factors such as soaring inflation, record surge in imports, imbalance in current account balance, shortage of dollars supply and rise in business cost have together hurt investors' sentiment.
The inflation rate is rising quickly. Food prices and oil prices have been impacted by the Ukraine-Russia war and there is no certainty on when the war will end, said a leading broker.
The stock market remained unstable due to rising inflation which reduced the investors' buying power and depreciation of the local currency fueling foreign investors' sales, he said.
Inflation rate shot up to 6.29 per cent in April - highest in 18 months - amid persistently rising food and non-food prices, said Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) Wednesday. In March, overall inflation rate was 6.22 per cent.
The downturn was also fuelled by fears that the interest rate would be raised in an attempt to tackle the inflation, he said.
The stock market regulator is trying to increase institutional fund flows to the market, but failed to revive the market sentiment, said the stockbroker.
"The growing concerns about rising inflation which reduced the real income of the investors as well as the dollar value of the foreign investors' portfolio decrease the confidence of the investors," said International Leasing Securities.
The risk-averse investors kept their selling spree on sector-specific issues to avoid further erosion of their portfolios, said the stockbroker.
The investors were much more conservative because of the negative global macroeconomic outlook, uncertain and worsening local economic outlook amid deteriorating exchange rate, inflation pressure along with the existing threat to corporate profitability, said the stockbroker.
All the sectors faced selling pressures, leading to the share price erosion of entire sectors. The general insurance suffered the most, losing 1.60 per cent, followed by banking with 0.70 per cent, telecom 0.70 per cent, power 0.70 per cent, financial institutions 0.60 per cent and pharma 0.40 per cent.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 380 issues traded,
263 declined, 67 advanced and 50 issues remained unchanged.
Beximco was the most-traded stock with shares worth Tk 532 million changing hands, closely followed by Islami Bank, Shinepukur Ceramics, JMI Hospital Requisite Manufacturing and Bangladesh Shipping Corporation.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended lower with the CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) shedding 135 points to settle at 18,439 and its Selective Categories Index (CSCX) losing 82 points to close at 11,064.
Of the issues traded, 208 declined, 54 advanced and 26 issues remained unchanged on the CSE trading floor.
The port-city bourse traded 8.45 million shares and mutual fund units with turnover value of Tk 278 million.

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