Star Business Report
Stocks dived for a second day as investors continued to speculate a massive correction in the market.
The benchmark index slumped by more than 100 points yesterday.
The speculation was backed by multiple factors, including regulatory measures to cool the market, profit booking sales by institutional investors ahead of the half yearly accounts or financial adjustment, and government plans to impose taxes on capital market, insiders said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission reset the margin loan criteria by reducing the PE (price-earnings) ratio from 50 to 40 to control the liquidity inflow.
Also, the central bank limited commercial banks' capital exposure to stockmarket. The banks will no longer be allowed to invest more than 10 percent of their total liabilities in stockmarket.
In the proposed budget, the government proposed taxes on the capital gains of institutional investors, and to increase the tax at source on brokerage commission.
"Backed by all the factors, investors are panicking on rumours that a falling trend would continue in the market, resulting in a selling pressure," said Akter Hossain Sannamat, managing director of Prime Finance and Investment.
Besides, most institutional investors are booking profits by the end of June, the half yearly period for all institutions when they adjust stock portfolios, he said.
The benchmark index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange -- DSE General Index -- plummeted 116.12 points, or 1.86 percent, to 6,101.14.
With no positive performers in the market yesterday, losers outnumbered gainers 202 to 38. Eight securities remained unchanged.
The premier bourse traded more than 3.56 crore shares and mutual fund units with a turnover of Tk 1,245.60 crore -- a 26 percent decline over yesterday's turnover.
Chittagong stocks also marked a sharp fall with the CSE Selective Categories Index declining by 216.66 points, or 1.82 percent, to 11,661.19.