Stocks continue to plunge
Agitated share market investors went on a rampage on Monday afternoon vandalising scores of vehicles and business establishments at Motijheel in the city as the general index of Dhaka Stock Exchange continued to plunge, shedding 324.51 points on the day.
The angry investors took to the streets of Motijheel, the commercial hub of the capital city, for the second day on Monday as the share prices continued to decline heavily as soon as the trading began.
Trading on the DSE started as scheduled despite the general strike called by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and in the first five minutes of trading the DSE general index took a plunge of about 240 points.
The index, however, levelled after an hour of trading and stood at about 6,725 points. But the share prices started to slide again as panic-stricken investors continued to sell off their stocks amid a liquidity crisis prevailing in the market.
The investors became furious and came out of brokerage houses after the index had lost 185 points after the midday.
They set fire to woods and papers piled up on the road stretching from the Bangladesh Bank building and Ittefaq crossing chanting demands for immediate resignation of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, finance minister AMA Muhith, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman, and DSE president Shakil Rizvi for their failure to stabilise the market.
They blocked the road and staged demonstrations and took out processions in small groups. They also locked in sporadic clashes with the police.
Investors also took out several processions with their shirts taken off and waving their shoes in an expression of their frustration and anger towards the market regulators.
A group of agitating investors dislodged a roadside advertising board and wielding it chased media professionals covering the incident, shouting, ‘We are losing every thing and you media people come here to telecast live shows without ticket.’
A small section of the investors, who were throwing brickbats at a Janata Bank branch and its adjacent business houses, locked horns with law-enforcers at round 2:30pm.
As the police went for action to disperse the rowdy investors, they took shelter in the nearby lanes and threw brickbats at the law-enforcers.
The general index of DSE lost 324.51 points, or 4.83 per cent, to close the day at 6,394.53 points as prices of 241 of the total 255 issues traded on the day declined heavily.
After the closing, the aggrieved investors ran amok, vandalising a number of cars and pelting brickbats at the offices of Bangladesh Bank, Citi Bank NA, IFIC Bank, NCC Bank, American Life Insurance Company, and a number of offices in front of the Jiban Bima Tower which houses the SEC office.
The Rapid Action Battalion then swooped on the demonstrators, chased and dispersed them.
The regulatory bodies including the government high-ups are ‘worthless’ and should step down immediately, shouted an investor named Shah Jalal from a rally in front of the DSE building.
Later, he told New Age, ‘If the country’s finance minister treated the capital market as a gambling house, it surely proves his ineligibility to have the portfolio.’
A section of investors also demanded that share trading should be suspended until the regulators could come up with appropriate measures to stabilise the market.
Mohiuddin, a small investor, said, ‘What the regulators term market correction is an utter nonsense, rather it is an indicator of corruption.’
On Sunday, investors staged demonstration in front of the DSE building as the DSE general index lost 406 points, or 5.7 per cent, on the day. The market began to collapse last week for the second time in the past three weeks.
Experts attribute the recent volatility of the capital market to a lack of confidence of investors and a liquidity crisis prevailing in the market.
Salahuddin Ahmed Khan, a finance teacher at Dhaka University, told New Age, ‘The investors have lost their faith in the market and are going for panic-driven sales.’
‘It will take a long time for the market to bounce back in a natural process. It is suffering from liquidity crisis and the number of buyers is also declining due to the downtrend,’ he said.
Salauhddin, a former chief executive officer of the DSE, said, ‘The government can inject fresh funds to the market, which perhaps will stabilise the market.’
Anwar Securities CEO Azam Khan however said they were expecting the market to rebound after the merchant bankers and brokerage houses finished preparing the guideline on margin loan ratio.
‘The merchant bankers and stockbrokers are supposed to formulate the guideline by February 10. Once the guideline is formulated, investors will get a clear idea about how much loans they would get and could go for buying shares,’ he said.
