Dhaka bourse turnover hits 15-month low

Turnover at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) dwindled to a 15-month low on Tuesday as participation of buyers dropped drastically in the declining market.

On the day, the turnover declined 38% to Tk319 crore - which is the lowest since 5 April 2021 when the market began to bounce back from a multi-year low - from Tk515 crore in the previous trading session.

DSEX, the broad-based index of the Dhaka bourse plunged by 63.7 points or 1.02% to 6153 on Tuesday, following a 1.39% drop on Monday.

Analysts said macroeconomic worries kept intensifying this week as soon as the government announced an austerity plan to save power and energy in a bid to protect foreign currency reserves. Also, the official eight-year high inflation of 7.56% hurt investors' confidence as the soaring inflation creates upward pressure on interest rates.

Out of the 382 DSE scrips, 242 did not get any investor interested to buy within the session's price limit as currently no scrip is allowed to fall by more than 2% a day.

However, unlike Monday, the market got some buyers before the closing and that helped the indices avert a close at the intraday bottom.

Pharmaceuticals and chemicals, bank and textile sectors contributed most to the daily turnover.

Except for life insurance, no sector managed to avert shrinks in respective market capitalisation on Tuesday.

Only 21 DSE scrips advanced on Tuesday, 344 declined, and 21 remained unchanged.

Indices in the port city bourse also settled in the red terrain.