Stock market to remain positive this year
The country’s stock market would remain moderately bullish in 2019, but local infrastructural bottlenecks would be the biggest risk to the economy, according to a recent survey conducted by a leading stockbroker.
A total of 133 persons from different backgrounds participated in the Bangladesh Capital Market Sentiment Survey 2019, conducted between January 1 and January 22 this year by LankaBangla Securities Limited.
Forty-eight per cent of the respondents in the survey expressed optimism that the market would remain bullish this year, 82.2 per cent of them felt that the Bangladesh capital market would be better in 2019 than in the previous year.
About 47 per cent participants felt that the average daily market turnover would be more than Tk 800 crore while 44.6 per cent of the respondents felt that DSEX would close above 6,500 points on December 31, 2019.
In 2018, the core index at Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, lost 858.88 points to settle at 5,385.64 points with average daily turnover at Tk 552 crore, according to DSE.
On the other hand, 35.1 per cent of the respondents felt that the local infrastructural bottlenecks were going to be the biggest risk to Bangladesh economy in 2019.
About half of the respondents felt that the local currency would depreciate against the US dollar and borrowing would be more costly in 2019 while over 54 per cent of the respondents felt that inflation would increase in 2019.
Some 32.6 per cent of the respondents held lack of investors’ confidence as a risk factor for the capital market in 2019 while 41.8 per cent of them considered that in 2019, earnings performance of the listed companies would act as the greatest catalyst in improving the stock market condition.
The majority of the participants (82.8 per cent) felt most of the traders did not have minimum financial qualification to take knowledge-based investment decisions.
About 52.4 per cent of the participants felt that market fraud and manipulation would be the most critical ethical issue facing the capital market in 2019.
Some 43.6 per cent of the respondents were in favour of improved transparency of financial reporting and other corporate disclosures which they felt was most needed to help improve investors’ trust and market integrity in 2019.
Around 70 per cent of the respondents felt that the involvement of the Chinese investors as strategic partner in Dhaka bourse would bring infrastructural and technical changes in the market.
A Chinese consortium of Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges on September 4 last year joined Dhaka Stock Exchange as its strategic shareholder through purchasing 25 per cent shares of DSE for Tk 947 crore.
Thirty per cent thought that political instability was liable for low participation by foreign investors.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net