Investors sold their accumulated shares held in 63,000 beneficiary owners’ (BO) accounts in the past month, as the stock market experienced a bearish trend.
According to Central Depository Bangladesh Limited data, the number of BO accounts holding shares was 1.5 million on June 12, but the number came down to 1.44 million on July 12.
The number of inactive BO accounts soared by 21,000 to 483,000 on July 12 from 462,000 on June 12.
The total number of BO accounts was 2.03 million on July 12.
So, the number of inactive BO accounts is 22.8% of the total number of BO accounts.
The market has been in the doldrums for the past six months due to various reasons, including rising inflation, foreign exchange market volatility, a record trade deficit and global supply chain disruption.
Due to the depreciation of the local currency, foreign investors continued selling shares as the dollar appreciation hit their returns, market operators said.
They said that the foreign investors pulled Tk353 crore out of the DSE in the past two months, April and May, that dampened investors' mood.
The total foreign investments in the Dhaka Stock Exchange have dropped to Tk9,976 crore as the foreign investors have withdrawn around Tk7,000 crore from the market since 2018.
The market operators said that some investors might sell off their entire holdings in the past one month to meet Eid-centric expenses.
After the economic collapse in Sri Lanka, investors were assessing Bangladesh’s external debts and capacity of paying the debts.
The country’s reserves dropped by $8.29 billion in just 10 months that weakened Bangladesh’s import payment capacity.
The national budget for the financial year 2022-23 also failed to meet the investors’ expectation.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission has taken various steps to arrest the fall in share prices, but no initiative worked virtually, the market operators said.
So, the BSEC on March 8 restricted share prices of each company from falling beyond 2% to check the free fall on the market.
The prolonged bearishness on the market eroded the investors’ risk-taking appetite and prompted them to exit the market, market operators said.
DSEX, the key index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, plunged by 765 points to 6,324.80 on Wednesday from 7,089.52 points on February 13 when the current downward trend on the market began.