Stocks tumbled further on Thursday with the core index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) sinking below the 'psychological' threshold of 6,000-mark after 14 months.
Market insiders said the panic-driven investors continued to dump their equities amid looming uncertainties in coming months owing to the ongoing global crisis.
The market opened on a free-fall and the key index slumped 75 points after two hours of trading. However, the rest of the session recovered some losses, ultimately ending over 57 points down.
DSEX, the core index of DSE, went down by 57.49 points or 0.95 per cent to settle at 5,980.51, the lowest since June 7, 2021.
The market index shed 386 points while the market-cap wiped out Tk 267 billion in just 13 trading days after the Eid vacation.
Turnover, the important indicator of the market, also fell sharply to Tk 4.42 billion, which was 43 per cent lower than the previous day's tally of Tk 7.78 billion.
Investors were trying to exit from the market by dumping their holdings as they feared the market might lose further amid weak macroeconomic cues.
"The ongoing dollar crisis and rumors of fuel outage also created negative sentiment among the investors," he said.
The investors are worried about a number of macroeconomic issues such as the energy crisis, shrinking foreign currency reserves, depreciating local currency and high inflationary pressure.
"The deepening of uncertainty has dented the confidence of retail investors," said a stockbroker.
He noted that the investors are suffering from a confidence crisis amid a lack of clear direction of the banks' capital market exposure issue.
Dismal quarterly earnings of some of the listed companies published during the trading hours also hit investors' sentiment negatively, he added.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission took some steps in the past few months to stop the market, but no initiative appeared to be effective to boost investors' confidence.
The panic-driven investors went on a heavy sell-off to reduce further losses in the bearish market amid growing tension over macroeconomic cues, said International Leasing Securities.
Two other indices also tumbled. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, shed 17.60 points to finish at 2,145 and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) lost 11.64 points to close at 1,308.
All the sectors faced heavy sales pressure, leading to the share price erosion of about 88 per cent stocks. Out of 380 issues traded, 333 declined, 25 advanced and 22 issues remained unchanged on the DSE.
Among the major sectors, the financial institutions sector witnessed the highest loss of 1.60 per cent, followed by power with 1.30 per cent, textile 1.20 per cent, engineering 1.10 per cent, banking 0.80 per cent and telecom 0.60 per cent.
Beximco -- which lost 1.30 per cent -- was the most-traded stock with shares worth Tk 356 million changing hands, followed by Sonali Paper & Board Mills (197 million), Fortune Shoes (Tk 163 million), Matin Spinning (123 million) and Intraco Refueling Stations (Tk 116 million).
United Insurance was the day's top gainer, posting a 7.54 per cent gain while First Finance was the worst loser, losing 3.63 per cent following its no dividend declarations.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also tumbled with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -shedding 204 points to settle at 17,597 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -plunging 122 points to close at 10,542.
Of the issues traded, 240 declined, 17 advanced and 14 issues remained unchanged on the CSE. babulfexpress@gmail.com
