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BDR mutiny rattles stocks

Sarwar A Chowdhury
Stocks on twin bourses skidded yesterday after the morning news of a mutiny by a band of disgruntled border guards in Dhaka came as a shock to the already nervous investors.
All the price indices of Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges, often shaken by topsy-turvy trade, tumbled more than 1 percent.
Some jawans of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the official border security force, mutinied at their headquarters in Pilkhana, Dhaka, to protest "low pay, repression and corruption" among senior officers.
“The capital market is influenced by both economic and non-economic factors. The BDR mutiny is a non-economic but major incident. It is very natural that it will leave an impact, largely psychological, on
the stock market," Salahuddin Ahmed Khan, a professor of finance at Dhaka University, told The Daily Star.
The market rout was paced by psychological fallout from hours of gunfights at the BDR headquarters, Khan said. “The situation panicked investors."
“But the impact of such an incident is short-lived," said Khan, also former chief executive officer of Dhaka Stock Exchange.
Although the market opened on a positive note and gained more than 15 points in the first 10 minutes of trade, it lost close to 50 points over the next 30 minutes.
The news of BDR gun battles spread fast by the media and word of mouth, leaving the investors on edge, said Arif Khan, general manager of IDLC Finance. But the merchant banker believes the BDR incident will not leave a long-term effect on the market.
Trading curves on both bourses revealed broad signs of uncertainty among investors.
Trading at the branches of brokerage houses in Dhanmondi and its adjacent areas were disrupted. The physical presence of the investors was thin on the trading floor of the prime bourse.
“The turnout of investors in my brokerage house was low," said Sharif Ataur Rahman, managing director of SAR Securities.
Rahman said the fall was not as huge as it was thought to be. "If it had taken place in other countries, those markets would have suffered huge losses," he added.
The DSE member urged the investors not to get carried away by panic. “The investors should follow a wait-and-see policy in such a situation,” Rahman said.
On the premier bourse, the benchmark
DSE General Index fell 30.82 points, or 1.18 percent, to 2,581.11. The DSE All Share Price Index also declined 23.71 points, or 1.09 percent, to 2,150.05.
Of the 259 traded securities on the DSE, decliners beat advancers 169 to 83, with seven remaining unchanged. A total of 3,45,44,495 shares worth Tk 372.15 crore changed hands.
On the Chittagong Stock Exchange, the CSE Selective Categories Index dropped 64.38 points, or 1.25 percent, to 5,079.1. The CSE All Share Price Index slid 88.49 points, or 1.1 percent, to 7,888.55.
Of the 171 traded issues on the port city bourse, 54 advanced, 112 declined and five remained unchanged. A total of 74,77,488 shares worth Tk 50.30 crore changed hands on the CSE.
sarwar@thedailystar.net