Hundreds of share market investors on Monday ran amok on the road in front of Dhaka Stock Exchange in Motijheel in protest against share prices going into a free fall and in demand for immediate steps from the authorities concerned to stabilise the capital market that had been going through a depression for long.
At around 12.30pm, by which time the DGEN or the general index of DSE had lost more than 95 points, investors from different brokerage houses rushed out on to the streets and started demonstrating on the road from Shapla Square to Ittefaq crossing, bringing the vehicular traffic on that road to a standstill. They set fire to woods and automobile tyres, vandalised some rickshaws, and threw brickbat to a car.
A group of agitating investors damaged the main entrance to the DSE building while trying to break into it at around 1:20pm. At that point, law-enforcers stepped in and foiled the bid. However, the law-enforcers simply stood bye during the rest of the demonstration.
The demonstrating investors brought out processions in regular intervals holding brooms, torches, and shoes in their hands and taking their shirts off to symbolise their financial hardships since the January’s stocks crash.
When one of the processions reached the Shapla Square, investors started chanting slogans against the Bangladesh Bank governor and demanded his resignation.
The demonstrators from the processions also chanted slogans against finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith and termed him worthless for his failure to stabilise the share market. They also blamed the DSE top brass, including DSE president Shakil Rijvi, for their failure to protect investors’ interests.
Market operators said the investors had expected much from the meeting between the DSE and the leading stockbrokers on Sunday but the outcome of it really let them down.
‘After the meeting, they just named a number of problems that we already knew but failed to suggest any solution to the problems,’ said Shamim, an investor, standing in front of the DSE building.
Another investor, Muzahidul, said, ‘The finance minister should immediately step down for not only his failure to stabilise the securities market but also fuelling the ongoing market depression with his indecent and irresponsible comments.’
After the end of the street agitation at around 3:30pm, the demonstrators held a brief meeting in front of the DSE building, from where they declared to boycott trading until the government came up with substantial measures to stabilise the market.
Agitated investors in other parts of the country including Chittagong and Barisal also demonstrated against the sheer fall in share prices.
Our Chittagong correspondent reported that investors demonstrated on Monday in front of the Chittaong Stock Exchange.
Share market investors in Barisal also went on a rampage on the day and ransacked some brokerage houses, reported New Age’s Barisal correspondent.
They also blocked a road, on which most of the brokerage houses of the city are located, for half an hour from around 1:00pm.
A group of agitated investors ransacked the Al-Arafa Securities and locked it and M Securities up.
They refrained from trading and chanted slogans, demanding resignation of the finance minister and the central bank governor.
The DGEN on the day hit a two-and-a-half-month-low of 5,920.84 point, losing 97.11 points, or 1.61 per cent, in volatile trading.
The day’s turnover of the bourse, however, rose to Tk 314.45 crore from that of Tk 283.74 on the previous day as investors went for panic-driven sell-offs.
The CSCX, or the CSE Selective Category Index, lost 193.12 points, or 1.76 per cent, to end the day at 10,721.38 points.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sat in an emergency meeting with the stakeholders after the demonstration to find ways of addressing the situation. In the meeting they discussed about bringing some operational changes in the trading procedure.
The SEC is also scheduled to sit with the merchant banks today and the asset managers on Wednesday. The commission will also sit with its advisory committee on Thursday to scrutinise the feedback gathered in the first two meetings.
The DGEN had lost 273 points in seven trading days after the Eid vacation, gaining in just one session and losing heavily in the remaining five.
The bourse’s turnover earlier hit an all-time high of Tk 3,249.57 crore on December 5, when the market witnessed a boom, but it plunged to Tk 206.41 crore on January 25, following a series of huge market crashes discouraging the investors to trade.
After the dull period of January-February, the market started getting back on track in March, when the turnover of the bourse crossed the Tk 1,500-crore-mark for the first time after the crashes.
However, the market started to slip again in mid-April as investors turned panicky once more, following uncertainty about the implementation of the recommendations made by the probe committee on January’s stocks crash.
The market began to rebound after the government on June 29 had allowed investment of undisclosed money in stocks. The turnover of the Dhaka bourse posted a record high of the year of Tk 1,957.92 crore on July 24 as the investors, especially the institutional ones, became active again.
But, the market entered the negative zone yet again at the end of July and had continued to remain depressed.
Courtesy of New Age
