Bourses to remain shut till April 14

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) would now remain closed till April 14 in accordance with the extended public holidays declared by the government, confirmed Minhaz Mannan Emon, a director at the premier bourse.

Mamun-Ur-Rashid, managing director of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), said they would also follow the government decision.

Earlier on March 23, the government declared a 10-day shutdown, from March 26 to April 4. Later, it was extended till April 11 and then till April 14. The government also imposed containment measures including social distancing since March 24 across the country.

This year, the stock market indices were already going through extreme volatility because of export slowdown, concern over the health of the banking sector, and a turbulent money market.

The novel coronavirus outbreak added to all the existing worries and triggered a free fall in recent weeks.

DSEX, the benchmark index of the Dhaka bourse, suffered a 20 percent fall until March 18, but later recovered partially with a 10 percent gain due to the new floor prices.

Before the nationwide shutdown was imposed, the DSEX stood at 4,008 points on March 25.

"The brokerage houses were already under pressure because of a downtrend in transactions this year," Minhaz said, adding it would be very difficult to overcome this loss.

He also said that capital markets all over the world were operating even during the coronavirus lockdown.

"However, here [in Bangladesh] the technology to run trading completely online has not been set up yet, so we are bound to halt transactions."

Bangladesh has so far twelve deaths and 123 confirmed infections from Covid-19.