The prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) fell to nearly two months low on Wednesday as soaring non-performing loan hit bank stocks hard.
Market analysts said investors showed their selling spree, particularly on banking, non-bank financial and telecom issues, taking the prime index to two months low.
Banking and financial institutions sectors continued to suffer losses amid the news of soaring non-performing loan in the banking sector, said a leading broker.
Despite close monitoring by the central bank, the volume of classified loans in the country's banking system soared more than 26 per cent or Tk 196.08 billion in the last calendar year.
The NPLs rose to Tk 939.11 billion as of December 31, 2018, from Tk 743.03 billion on the same day in 2017, according to the central bank's latest data.
He noted that banking and telecom are bellwether sectors for the capital market and fall in banking and telecom stocks obviously affect the benchmark index.
Banking sector fell 0.76 per cent as prices of 15 banks closed in the red while telecom sector suffered 1.21 per cent loss as Grameenphone shares fell 1.28 per cent.
The market opened on downward trend and the negative trend continued till end of the session with no sign of reversal.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), finished at nearly two-month low to 5,711, shedding 26.81 points or 0.46 per cent over the previous day.
Stocks witnessed another downbeat session as the risk-averse investors opted to liquidate their stocks to escape further losses, commented International Leasing Securities.
The two other indices also ended lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 15.75 points to finish at 1998 and the DSES (Shariah) index lost 5.08 points to settle at 1,314.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, stood at Tk 6.89 billion, which was 1.47 per cent higher than the previous day's turnover of Tk 6.79 billion.
A total number of 142,896 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 144.45 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of the DSE also fell to Tk 4,150 billion, from Tk 4,163 billion in the previous day.
The port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange also ended lower with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - shedding 61 points to settle at 17,473 while the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -losing 36 points to finish at 10,586.
Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 138 issues closed lower, 90 ended higher and 40 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 6.85 million shares and mutual fund units worth Tk 231 million in turnover.
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