Disgruntled share market investors on Wednesday locked in scuffles with the police on the street and threw brickbats at the Dhaka Stock Exchange building in the city’s Motijheel area after the share prices dipped further and a newly-introduced circuit-breaker halted trading on the bourse.
Hundreds of angry investors came out on the road in front of the DSE building after an index circuit-breaker introduced earlier in the day had halted the trading on the country’s premier bourse at 2:26pm when the DSE general index fell by 237 points.
The agitating investors set fire to papers and wooden boxes piled on the road and chanted slogans against the finance minister, Bangladesh Bank governor, and officials of Securities and Exchange Commission and Dhaka Stock Exchange amid a heavy presence of armed police.
Many investors sought prime minister’s intervention in bringing the capital market back on track.
The investors also demanded that the bourses should remain shut until the prime minister issued any directive in this regard.
They later threw brickbats at the DSE building and vandalised scores of vehicles before clashing with the police. The police managed to disperse them by 3:40pm.
Vehicular movement on the major roads in Motijheel area remained suspended for more than an hour during the demonstration. The police arrested a man named Abdul Wahab in front of the Jiban Bima Tower.
Following heavy slides in share prices in the last five days, the DSE, as per the directive of the SEC, launched the circuit-breaker that halts the market if the general index falls or advances by 225 points or more.
The decision to put the circuit-breaker on the general index was taken in an emergency meeting between finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith and officials of the SEC and the central bank at the former’s residence on Wednesday morning.
The trading at the DSE, halted more than one hour ahead of the scheduled time on Wednesday, began two hours late at 1:00pm as per a directive of the finance minister as he wanted to find a way to stop the continued heavy fall in share prices in the past few days.
The minister discussed the current market situation with the BB governor and other officials present and decided to put the circuit-breaker on the DSE general index.
He also ordered the SEC to investigate into the steep fall and sharp rise in share prices in the past few months to find whether there was any manipulation and, if there was any, who were involved in it.
Besides, the SEC was also asked to suggest short- and long-term steps for the market.
Although the market began in an upbeat mood on Wednesday, heavy selling by panic-stricken investors caused the DSE general index to drop to 6,902 points by 2:26pm, down by 237 points from the previous day’s closing.
Officials of different brokerage houses said, driven by a panic triggered by the continued heavy fall in the past five days, many of the small investors offloaded their entire stocks on the day.
Soon after the trading had been stopped, hundreds of investors started to throw brickbats on the streets from high-rise buildings that house brokerage firms.
DSE officials said trading on the bourse would resume today on time at 11:00am.
Earlier on Monday, the SEC halted trading on the DSE at 1:40pm after the market had taken a 237-point plunge. Later on that evening, the commission convened a meeting and decided to ask all listed companies to convert the face values of their issues to Tk 10 per share and to increase the deposit-free trading limit of stock dealers from Tk 5 crore to Tk 15 crore to boost investors’ confidence.
But all the decisions taken by the commission after the market began the bear run last week have failed to instil any confidence in the investors.
Earlier on January 10, the capital market regulator stopped trading on the bourse and investors across the country came out on the street in protest against the continued fall in share prices after the DSE general index had lost 660 points in just 50 minutes of trading preceded by another 600-point slide on January 9.
The SEC and the Bangladesh Bank halted the steep slide at that time by increasing the ceiling of margin loan ratio for investors and assuring that the banks would be dealt with leniency if they overinvested in the capital market. But none of the decisions has made any difference so far.
The small investors who entered the share business late last year lured by the then booming market have so far lost more than half of their capital to the bear run.
