BANGLADESH

An hour of trading at the country's premier bourse has seen 175 points or 4.22 percent knocked off the Dhaka Stock Exchange General Index (DGEN) on the second last trading day of the week, with prices of most shares and mutual funds falling.

The DGEN stood at 3978.48 points around 11:59am on Wednesday with shares worth Tk 778.80 million changing hands by then. Prices of 227 issues fell, seven remained unchanged and only two rose.

Despite opening on Tuesday with a rise in the general index, the Dhaka Stock Exchange ended up closing in the red, 132.15 point lower than the opening, after day-long fluctuations.

On Monday, the DSE managed to close in the green, gaining 103 points. On Sunday, the DGEN dropped below the 4200-point mark to 4183.07 points, the lowest since the market instability in 2010.

The index close dropped below the 4200-point mark for the last time on Nov 19 2009, over 26 months ago.

Previous week's trading saw a loss of 458.9 points or 9.29 percent. The daily average turnover was Tk 2.41 billion, 19 percent lower than that of the previous week.

Although the market stabilised a little last month after the market regulator SEC had declared a package of incentives, the stocks started taking a battering in the first week of the new year.