Panic grips stock markets amid economic fears

Bangladesh’s stock markets are feeling the pinch of the global economic turmoil and stagflation, which it had hardly experienced before.

All indices of the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges are in a free fall for the consecutive seven days, pushing investors into a panic mode.

DSEX, the benchmark index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down over 51 points or 0.81 percent to settle the day at 6,258. With this, DSEX lost about 307 points this week only.

Mahbub H Mazumdar, chief executive officer (CEO) of AFC Capital, while talking to the Business Insider Bangladesh, attributed the downtrend to the economic turbulence in home amid the war in Ukraine.

“In addition to the global political and economic crisis, the current inflation in our country and the devaluation of the taka against the dollar has created some instability in the capital market.

“This has created a kind of fear among the general investors. As a result, many have panicked and started selling shares,” he said.

However, he noted that it would not be a wise thing to do. “Now we have to be patient in the market. The capital market will return to normalcy soon.”

On Thursday, the price drop occurred at the beginning of the transaction. The index fell more than 80 points in one hour. But at half-past one, DSEX recovered the early losses and went 15 points higher.

But after that more sales pressure came and DSEX ended the day 51 points lower.

Among other indices, shariah-based DSES dropped 8.46 points or 0.60 percent and blue-chip DS30 declined 19.80 points or 0.84 percent.

The DSE saw a turnover of Tk 668.88 crore, down by Tk 94.05 crore from the previous session.

Shares of the 380 companies traded on the day, of which only 67 firms gained, 263 lost and 50 remained unchanged.

Shares of Beximco Limited were the most-traded by value on the DSE as its shares worth Tk 53.19 crore were traded on the day.

Islami Bank Limited, which was the second most-traded stock, had a turnover of Tk 34.35 crore and Shinepukur Ceramics Tk 25.64 crore.

Other top traded shares were JHRML, BSC, Orion Pharma, NRBC Bank, ACI Formulations, RD Food and BATBC.

The miscellaneous sector rose to the top position in terms of transactions. The total turnover in this sector was nearly Tk 101 crore, which was 15.48 percent of the total turnover.

The banking sector was at the second position with Tk 84.14 crore turnover, followed by pharmaceuticals and chemicals at Tk 78 crore.

Meanwhile, the overall index CASPI of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) decreased 135 points to 18,439 and securities worth Tk 27.77 crore were traded on the day.