Bourses to remain closed till April 11

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) will remain closed till April 11 in accordance with the extended public holidays declared by the government, confirmed Minhaz Mannan Emon, a director at the prime bourse.

Mamun-Ur-Rashid, the managing director of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also said they would follow the government decision.

The government has extended the ongoing general holidays till April 11 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus in the country, although vehicular movement is expected to return to normal gradually.

Earlier on March 23, the government declared a 10-day shutdown, effective from March 26 to April 4. The government also imposed containment measures including social distancing since March 24 across the country.

This year, the stock market indices were already going through extreme volatility because of export slowdown, concern over the health of the banking sector, and a turbulent money market.  

The novel coronavirus outbreak added to all the existing worries and triggered a free fall in recent weeks.

DSEX, the benchmark index of the Dhaka bourse, had suffered a 20 percent fall until March 18, but later recovered partially with a 10 percent gain due to the new floor prices.

Before the nationwide shutdown was imposed, the DSEX stood at 4,008 points on March 25.  

"The brokerage houses were already under pressure because of a downtrend in transactions this year," Minhaz said, adding it will be very difficult to overcome this loss.

He also said that capital markets all over the world are operating during the coronavirus lockdown. 

"However, here [in Bangladesh] the technology to run trading completely online has not been set up yet, so we are bound to halt transactions."

Bangladesh has so far confirmed six deaths and 56 infections from Covid-19.