Ahsan Habib

Uncertain bets: bad stocks rule the roost

Investors who owned the issues of good companies that provided at least 50 percent dividend in their last financial year incurred losses in the first four months of 2024. On the other hand, people who bet on low-performing companies, which declared less than 15 percent dividends, saw their portfolio inflate.

2d ago

State banks struggle while foreign lenders make hefty profit. Here’s why

Why is there such a huge discrepancy between multinational banks and state-run lenders despite operating in the same business environment? The reason is a lack of efficiency in making business decisions, business focus, and political bias.

3d ago

Saif Powertec not publishing financial reports for 18 months

As a result, general investors remained in the dark about the financial performance of the company during this period.

3d ago

HSBC’s 2023 profit nearly Tk 1,000cr

The profit amounted to Tk 999 crore, soaring 70 percent year-on-year. It was Tk 587 crore in 2022.

1w ago

Will BSEC ever learn from its missteps?

Analysts say the regulator’s intervention is denting investors’ confidence and it comes at a time when they are still smarting from the wounds caused by the 18-month-long floor price, a period when most of the stocks were untradeable.

2w ago

A third of budget spent on interest payments, subsidies

The government spent Tk 246,583 crore in July-January of 2023-24 out of the total budget of Tk 761,785 crore for the entire fiscal year, figures from the finance ministry showed. The outlay under interest payments and subsidies was Tk 88,226 crore, which was 36 percent of the allocation.

2w ago

Stocks lose lustre as investment tool

Since the floor price removal, the stocks have been bleeding owing to massive sell-offs by local and foreign investors as the economic uncertainty persists

2w ago

Higher debt to put strain on Bangladesh as revenue remains low

In the last decade, the debt-to-GDP ratio rose by 13 percentage points. The IMF forecasts that the ratio will reach 43.5 percent in 2028-29.

3w ago

March 16, 2024

Secrets of an informal commodity exchange

The narrow streets of Old Dhaka’s Moulvibazar hum with activity: commodity trading. On mobile phones, wholesalers fervently follow prices on trading floors in Chicago and London to bet on the local prices of sugar and edible oil. In and around tea stalls in this gloomy corner of Dhaka, even idle chats are centred around the price movement on the London Commodity Exchange, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Bursa Malaysia.

March 10, 2024

Can the overly enthusiastic drives stop restaurant fires?

The Bailey Road fire, which killed at least 46 people on the last night of February, once again points to the massive flaws in the safety system of businesses in the sprawling Dhaka city and highlights the urgency to ramp up monitoring and interventions to avoid preventable deaths.

March 3, 2024

Insurance claim settlement rises in 2023

The claim settlement rate in the insurance sector of Bangladesh has risen by more than four percentage points within the span of a single year although the ratio has remained far below the global average.

March 3, 2024

Entrepreneurs stare at another blow as electricity tariff goes up

Entrepreneurs who have been finding it difficult to keep their head above water for the past two years owing to higher prices of energy, raw materials and massive depreciation of the local currency are staring at another blow as their cost of production is set to rise following the hike in electricity tariffs.

March 1, 2024