Stocks start week with a big fall

Bourses opened the week with a big fall in stock prices yesterday, as retail investors rushed to escape the market fearing further losses.
DGEN, the benchmark index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, dropped 94 points, or 2.16 percent, to 4,253.
CSCX, the main gauge of Chittagong Stock Exchange, also slid 164 points, or 1.94 percent, to finish the day at 8,283 points.
Fear factor resulted in a panic-driven selling spree among the investors following poor earnings disclosures by some banks, stockbrokers and investment bankers said.
“As the investors wanted to escape from the falling market that exhibited continuous downhill for nine consecutive sessions, including a flat session, market surpassed another session with anxiety,” said IDLC Investment in its regular market analysis.
Poor earnings disclosure by some banks sparked the downtrend for the overall market, said LankaBangla Securities, a leading stockbroker.
Four banks -- Southeast Bank, Standard Bank, Premier Bank and NCC Bank -- disclosed their third quarter earnings.
Of them, only Southeast made positive growth in net profit, while Standard and NCC made negative growth and Premier incurred losses during July-September period this year, compared with the corresponding period last year.
Losers beat gainers on both the exchanges. Of the issues traded on the premier bourse, 31 advanced and 234 declined with six securities remaining unchanged, while on the port city bourse 16 issues advanced and 154 declined with five remaining unchanged.
The DSE traded over 9.04 crore shares and mutual fund units on a value of Tk 345 crore, while 1.05 crore shares and mutual fund units worth Tk 37.47 crore changed hands on the CSE.
All the major sectors ended in red with fuel and power sector shares declining the most followed by non-banking financial institutions, banks, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.