Stocks continued bleeding for the fifth straight session on Tuesday as cautious investors kept their sell-off to avoid further erosion of their portfolios amid growing economic worries.
Following the previous day's steep fall, the market opened on a positive for a while, then started to decline sharply and the key index lost more than 110 points at one stage.
But late hour's buying support from the institutional investors, particularly the state-run Investment Corporation of Bangladesh, helped to recover most of the losses, eventually ending 27 points lower.
DSEX, the key index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 27.42 points or 0.42 per cent to settle at 6,403, lowest in 10 months since July 27, 2021. DSEX lost over 294 points in the past five straight sessions.
Turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, also fell to Tk 7.75 billion, which was 24 per cent lower than the previous day's tally of Tk 10.24 billion.
Market operators said investors are disappointed with the continuous fall of stock prices while the premier bourse lost over Tk 213 billion in its market capitalisation in five days.
Some factors relating to the country's macroeconomic issue might together hurt investors' sentiment, said a merchant banker, seeking anonymity.
The anxiety of economic instability and uncertainties of the coming days created apprehensions among stock investors, he said.
Already the inflation rate is rising quickly. Food and oil prices have been impacted by the Ukraine-Russia war and there is no certainty on when the war will end, he said.
Meanwhile, share prices of two scam-hit financial institutions, associated with PK Halder, continued to rise on Tuesday.
International Leasing & Financial Services stock jumped 8.33 per cent to close at Tk 6.50. It was the day's top gainer.
FAS Finance's stock rose 3.57 per cent to close at Tk 5.80 on Tuesday. It was the eighth highest gainer.
FAS Finance and International Leasing stocks soared 9.80 per cent and 9.09 per cent respectively on Monday following the arrest news of PK Halder in India.
A record surge in trade deficit in the wake of global price instabilities has become a concern among investors as it shortened dollar supply and depreciated the local currency.
Meanwhile, the local currency (BDT) lost its value by 80 paisa on the inter-bank foreign- exchange (forex) market on Monday due to higher payment obligation for costly imports in the wake of global price hike.
The downturn was also fuelled by fears that the interest rate would be raised in an attempt to tackle the inflation, he said.
"Investors might favour sideline strategies to observe market momentum in the backdrop of rising inflation and depreciating exchange rates," said EBL Securities.
The investors are more conservative now because of bleak outlook of local and global economy, deteriorating exchange rate, inflationary pressure along with the existing threat to corporate profitability, said International Leasing Securities.
Two other indices also ended marginally lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.25 points to finish at 2,363 and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) shed 1.52 points to close at 1,408.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended lower with the CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) shedding 121 points to settle at 18,745 and its Selective Categories Index (CSCX) losing 72 points to close at 11,248.
Of the issues traded, 195 declined, 66 advanced and 32 issues remained unchanged on the CSE trading floor.
The port-city bourse traded 13.23 million shares and mutual fund units with turnover value of Tk 279 million.
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