A section of capital market investors on Thursday demanded immediate intervention of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in preventing the free fall of stock prices as their investable amount keeps eroding.
The demand was placed by Pujibazar Biniogkari Oikya Parishad (PBOP), a platform of capital market investors, to the Prime Minister's Office following a demonstration in front of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) building in Motijheel, Dhaka during trade hours.
"We have submitted a memorandum containing a 15-point demand to the prime minister, as a last resot to save our investments. We hope the prime minister will consider our demands," PBOP President Mizan-ur-Rashid Chowdhury told Dhaka Tribune.
Blaming the incumbent chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission for the failure to stabilize the market, the PBOP reiterated their demand of his resignation.
It is reported thatstocks’ investors hadsuffered huge losses due to the continued decline in prices over the last few months.
The DSE broad index lost 2.44 points on Thursday. At the end of the day, the index closed red at 5130.70 points with a 0.05% decrease from the previous session. All the large cap sectors showed negative movements except shares in banks, telecommunications and textiles.
On Monday, the broad index of DSE shed 88.01 points or 1.70%, triggering demonstration by investors who took to the streets in Dhaka. The free fall of stock prices caused the broad index-DSEX of the prime bourse to drop to the lowest level in the last 30 months.
The market began to dip sharply since the beginning of 2019, losing about 750 points.
Stock analysts say small investors have no study about movement of prices of different companies’ shares, and they go for purchasing when the price of a company’s scrip starts escalating. Therefore, they get panicked easily, selling out their shares in case of downward trend.
Market operators, however, have said that investors are going through a volatile situation amid financial scams, soaring non-performing loans, and poor banking management, causing abnormal price fall.
Liquidity crisis in the local banks has also made local and foreign investors wary of investing in Bangladesh’s capital market, they added.