Foreign investors’ participation at the Dhaka Stock Exchange increased to an all-time high in 2014 as their turnover at the bourse rose by 84.56 per cent during the year compared with that in the previous year. In 2014, the overseas investors bought shares worth Tk 4,406 crore against their Tk 1,798 crore sales, which were Tk 2,652 crore and Tk 709 crore respectively in 2013, the latest DSE data released on Thursday showed.
Foreign investors’ turnover at the bourse was Tk 6,205 crore in last year compared with that of Tk 3,362 crore during 2013, it showed.
Market operators said the overseas investors had increased their participation at the bourse as they found share prices lucrative due to the constant fall in share prices at bourse till 2013 since the market crash in December 2010.
The then key index of the DSE, DGEN, crash-landed from 8,723.18 points on December 1, 2010, with its peak of 8,918.51 points on December 5 in the year, to 7,572.61 points on January 30, 2011, producing the big bang of the crash, the aftershocks of which had since been continuing to decrease the share prices further.
The aftershock of the market crash of late 2010 had continued throughout the following years where DGEN had lost 3,032 points in 2011 and 1,038 points in 2012.
The DGEN hit the lowest ebb on January 4, 2013 at 3,383.23 points since November 15, 2009.
The Dhaka bourse introduced new general index, DSEX, on January 28, 2013 which hit its lowest value at 3,438.90 points on April 30 and reached to its highest at 4,439.60 points on November 20 of the same year.
Due to lucrative share prices, month-wise net overseas investment in the DSE hit an all-time high of Tk 572.08 crore in April 2014 as they bought shares worth Tk 876.43 crore and sold shares worth Tk 304.35 crore.
The earlier highest single-month net foreign investment at the bourse was Tk 339.49 crore in June 2013 when the overseas investors bought shares worth Tk 339.49 crore and sold shares worth Tk 58.30 crore with the total turnover standing at Tk 453.21 crore.
‘Foreign investors always put their funds based on analytical information and they might be expecting satisfactory return from some specific shares that may be the reason behind their increased participation at the bourse,’ DSE managing director Swapan Kumar Bala told New Age on Friday.
The overseas investors are now enjoying hassle-free fund transfer from the country and to the country and that might be another reason for the increased fund flow at the market, he said.
Improved information flow, stable market condition and increased confidence in the market after demutualisation might be among other reasons behind the increased foreign fund flow, Swapan said.
-With New Age input
