After the Prime Minister’s initiative to save the bourses, the country’s stock markets made a U-turn from its continuous declining trend on Sunday as prices of almost all securities increased.
Breaking the record of seven years, the biggest single day gaining in DSEX, the prime index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) rose by 5.59 percent or 232.23 points to close at 4,382.06 points on Sunday.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the relevant authorities to implement a number of short-term and long-term measures without delay while attending a meeting with Khairul Hossain, the chairman of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, and government policymakers at its office in the city.
She gave six point directives, including, ensuring easy credit facility for market operators, attracting more foreign investment, listing more multinational companies, profitable state-owned enterprises (SoEs), enhancing institutional investment in the market, enhancing participation of banks and financial institutions in the stock market, and boosting investment capacity of the state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB).
Eminent economist and market expert Prof Abu Ahmed told The Bangladesh Post, “Stocks have come bank as the government has recently taken some good measures to prepare the ground quite well to bring back investors’ confidence in the market.
The economist further said, the government gave instructions to encourage good companies, including local as well as multinational ones, which will be very effective to undertake a drive to develop a long-term financing capital market.
The government should create a report bank to monitoring the directives which is ordered to ensure timely measures to rebound capital market.
An investor of the capital market Shafiqul Islam told The Bangladesh Post that, “The government has taken some effective measures, which will help to bring back investors’ trust in the market.”
He requested the Prime Minister to monitor properly and keep in touch with the market to build a strong capital market.
However, the prime index of DSE increased almost 5.59 percent or 232.23 points to close at 4,382.06 points, which was the highest level of DSEX since January 2013.
Besides, the comprising blue chips index (DS30) went up by 80.65 points or 5.73 percent to 1487 while the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) rose by 57 points or 6.09 percent to close at 997.58 points.
On the other hand, the total turnover on the DSE reached Tk 4,113.66 million, over 53 percent higher from previous day’s value of Tk 2,674.91 million.
The gainers beat the losers as out of 351 issues traded, 346 ended higher, 6 closed lower and 4 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Square Pharma dominated the DSE floor and topped the turnover chart with 1 million shares worth Tk 191 million changing hands.
It was followed by SINGERBD (Tk 171 million), LHBL (Tk 132 million), KPCL (Tk 121 million) and SS Steel (Tk 104 million).
Beximco Pharma was the best performer, posting a gain of 10 percent to Tk 66 while SS Steel was the worst loser, losing 6.25 percent to Tk 14.80.
Meanwhile, the port city bourse, the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also saw positive trend on Wednesday with its selective category index (CSCX) gaining 413 points or 5.5 percent to 8,048 points.
Besides, CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) also rose by 677 points or 5.37 percent to settle at 13,277.87 points on the day.
At the CSE, total 257 issues were traded. Among them, 231 closed higher, 15 ended lower and 11 remained unchanged.
However, the number of shares transacted on the floor of the CSE was 13.25 million and the total turnover in value was almost Tk 436.82 million.
