Stock Market Crash an Experience on DSE

Executive Summary

In a market economy, the capital market plays a vital role in the efficient allocation of scarce resources. Well-functioning and developed capital markets augment the process of economic development through different ways such as encourage savings, draw more savers and users into the investment process, draw more institution into the intermediation process, help mobilize non financial resources, attract external resources, bring disciplines in the sick organizations and invest for organizing production of goods and services and create employment opportunities.

There is a saying that the stock market is the pulse of the economy. There is no doubt that a vibrant capital market is likely to support economy to be robust but two major catastrophes in the capital market of Bangladesh within one and half decades do not indicate the existence of a vibrant market; rather these show a highly risky and unstable capital market. The recent surge in the capital market has shaken the whole country as millions of people became insolvent within a very short span of time. It was observed in 2010 that the DSE general index was the highest ever which made it Asia’s top performer after China.

But the reverse scenario was scaring investors in the 1st quarter of 2011 as the lowest ever in the index observed during that period.

Actually, stock market crash is as more than 10% loss within few days in a stock market. But stock market crash has differentiated from stock market correction where the loss is 10% or less.

“Stock market crash is a sharp and unexpected decline of stock market prices for a very short period of time, usually accompanied with the decline of many other assets’ prices” mentioned by stock market crashes.net. It causes significant capital losses of investors and speculators. The market participants become panicked which leads to more losses.

Bangladeshi Stock Market has experienced a big crash twice from its inception. In 1996, the market was crashed because of speculative bubble whereas; it was an asset bubble in the year 2011. The stock price was overvalued this time. Price was inflated about 500-700 percent compare to the face value. DGEN Index climbed at point 8918.51 on December 05, 2010 which signaled a steeper bubble.

This study postulates the present scenario of Bangladesh Stock Market through various quantitative and qualitative data which are extracted from the secondary sources. Quantitative data are gathered from the web site of Dhaka Stock Exchange and other qualitative data are collected from published research journals, newspapers, websites etc. This study has revealed that, Gap between the Demand and Supply of stock, extraordinary over pricing of stock, market manipulation, lack of knowledge about the stock market mechanism among the general investors, price distortion, inefficient regulations, political unrest, etc caused the crash of DGEN Index in the FY2011. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Bangladesh and government should encourage more public limited companies to offer more share to meet the current demands. In order to get back the confidence among the existing investors regulatory body may introduce Income tax rebate, Injection of Market Stabilization Fund, Mandatory holding certain percentage of share among the board of directors, short term incentives packages etc.

Regulators had failed to take proactive measures to not grow the bubble and caused losses for millions of investors when the bubbles burst. When analysts were anxious about the bubbles, regulators were ignoring them and even defended the bubbles.

The recent volatility of the capital market of Bangladesh is an abnormal phenomenon and such volatility tends to economic instability. I believe it will be interested enough to look into the causes of the problem. As such volatility affects mass people (many investors), it is essential to try to minimize such volatility by identifying the causes (esp., Regulatory failure) and solving the problems.

Introduction:

Stock market is one of the most important financial institutions of any economy as well as Bangladesh. It opens door for companies to raise huge amount of capital from a lot of individual investors inside & outside of a country.

Investors participate voluntary to buy ownership of a company in the public market. It is said that stock market is an intermediary institution to adjust a gap between surplus units and deficit units of an economy. In these days for millions of middle class educated people in Bangladesh investing in stocks is more popular than investing in any other investment sectors. For an investor, stocks are more liquid than any other investment sources as it gives ability to sell and buy ownership anytime without any hassle.

Since 2007 share prices of Bangladesh stock market have been increasing steadily over the past four years and it outperformed almost all the world´s markets.

The financial year 2008-09 is known for the global financial and economic crisis. Many developed and developing countries fall into recession. However, it could not affect Bangladesh economy greatly. So, the stock market of the country did not see any significant changes or fall. As CPD (2011) reported, financial year 2008-09 was a volatile year but during this year Bangladesh economy benefited from low prices of import-able and was able to avoid negative pressure on its export of goods and services. Consecutive outstanding performance of Bangladesh stock market in recent years before the crash lured millions of investors to the stock market to invest their little savings. Before the stock market crash the market had become a route of easy money for too many new individual investors. That is why millions of fresh investors invest their small saving in the market during this period. For these fresh investors investing in this market provided a way to avoid working a job. Even some BO account holders worked as intermediaries of friends, relatives to invest their money in the stock market.

Finally, the stock market crashed and taught these investors that investing money in the stock market involves risk too. But the lesson that investors are taught wreaked havoc on the lives of millions of innocent investors. The crash wiped out billions of taka from the market where fresh, illiterate investors were the main victim. It has been more than a year since the crash occurred.  

Generally market crash occurs because of a sudden dramatic fall of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper assets. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors. They often follow speculative stock market bubbles. Stock market crashes are social phenomena where external economic events combine with crowd behavior and psychology in a positive feedback loop where selling by some market participants drives more market participants to sell. Generally speaking, crashes usually occur under the following conditions, a prolonged period of rising stock prices and excessive economic optimism, a market where P/E ratios exceed long-term averages, and extensive use of margin debt and leverage by market participants.

 Objective of the report

Since the origination of DSE in 1986, it passed through two big market crashes during 1996 and 2011. This repeated crisis made all the small investors empty. Main r objective is to find out the underlying causes of recent market fall and address some suggestions to get it back in structured market mechanism. Specifically focuses are to:-

   To depict the present scenario and the recent crash in the stock market of Bangladesh through a chronological analysis of stock market in Bangladesh..

   The study tries to examine the reasons that leaded the “Bull Run” for dramatic increase of different instruments in Bangladesh stock market and the fundamental factors of the collapse

  Tap few guidelines to recover the recent crisis.

  Methodology

The report is both descriptive & calculative by nature. The report is based on information collected from primary as well secondary sources. The indicators which are responsible for recent crash are measured by calculation. The trend of those indicators has also been measured for last three years. Statistical approach has also been used in the report.

To find out the critical issues of this sudden drama, we have collected secondary information from various sources. We have emphasized on quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the recent share market crash and it’s prevail crisis in Bangladesh stock market. All the quantitative data are extracted from Dhaka Stock Exchange website and qualitative data are collected from published research journals, newspapers, websites etc.

Data Collection:

In order to make the report more meaningful and presentable, two sources of data and information has been used.

The Primary Sources are as follows-

    Practical work exposure

    Discussion with the respective executives & officers of the bank.

The Secondary Sources of data and information are-

       Annual Reports of DSE.

       Various publications regarding DSE.

Analysis:

      The main factors of DSE have been analyzed from different perspectives.

      SOWT analysis

      Regression analysis:

 Rationale of the report

The thesis is required for students who are completing Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from University of Dhaka. It is a three credit hour program with duration of minimum one and half month. Students who have completed all the required courses are eligible for this program. This report has been prepared as a partial fulfillment of MBA program authorized by the Department of Banking. In this program, I was assigned to make report regarding DSE share crash. During making this report, I have learned about various aspects related to share market. This report has been prepared according to the topic given by the supervisor.

  Scope and limitations

A comprehensive knowledge on stock market crash has come under the scope of the report. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the stock market of Bangladesh.

The report is limited only to gather knowledge about the determiner of the crash of the share market of Bangladesh. Here the past history & present condition of Bangladesh share market will also be taken into consideration.

Limitation

There are some limitations, which act as a barrier to conduct the program and for doing an empirical research work. The limitations were:

      Large scale analysis was not possible due to constraints & restrictions this report is limited only to the share crash, it does not cover the whole perspectives.

      In many cases, up to date information was not published.

      In some cases, access to relevant papers & documents were strictly prohibited.

      Another Problem was time constraints.

      Insufficiency of necessary information, lack of experience and budget constraint.

 Literature review

About share market volatility many researcher of our country and abroad has worked by applying different methods and has tried to find out various factors that are actually liable to cause a crash. Here I have given some of their opinions regarding this topic and finally I have concluded according to my own.

The United States experienced the NASDAQ bubble in the late 1990s. The fluctuations beliefs generated by overconfidence among Bangladesh investors led to larger speculative component in stock prices, and the technical bubble of the U.S. market was identified as the result of “exuberance”.

(Shiller, 2000; Chen, Hong, and Stein, 2002). Given that markets in the advanced economies seemed to be more susceptible to speculative bubbles and crashes, and many emerging markets also display similar evidence, it seems reasonable that no one should look forward to these phenomena disappearing from the Bangladesh markets (Ahmed et al., 2006).

In line with Shiller (2000), other researchers also discussed how price movements are led by social processes in a non stationary environment or irrational market and that individuals value other person’s opinion in assessing probabilities. For example Chen, Hong, and Stein (2002) analyzed the overvaluation generated by beliefs. The authors conclude that the market overvaluation was caused by the investors’ overconfidence.

According to (Zaman, 2011) regarding Bangladesh market it is found that there is a general tendency among investors to hold onto their shares till the record date so that they get entitled for dividend, and then sells it off after the record date. This results in an increase in share supply which might result in price decrease.

Chowdhury & Chowdhury (2010) gathered secondary data of publicly listed companies, traded in Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), to see the relationship between capital structure and firm value in Bangladesh. It was observed that by changing its current ratio, operating leverage, EPS, dividend payout ratio or share capital, a firm may increase its value in the market. Chowudhury & Abdullah (2011) opines that lack of market regulation, lack of supply of good shares, presence of syndicate, lack of financial knowledge helped the market index jumped over 8000 point during December 2011.

I also agree about that some of the factors that have been presented by them are really the actual reason of market crash. Besides these I have also mentioned some other elements related to crash among which some are primary issue related and some are secondary issue related and some are authority regulatory related.

Here  I think the Capital Market of Bangladesh have been  passing tough times since December 2010 as high volatility is eroding the capital of Thousands of Investors that might turn into social instability. This fall is caused by many factors that I tried to identify and tried to link up between causal factors of market crash and regulatory failure.

 Primary issue related problems was faulty listing methods and IPO overpricing, few numbers of new listings, revaluating assets before company listing, high premium in issuance of right share/Repeat IPO etc. while secondary market related problems was stock splits and stock price manipulations through block trading, circular trading and insider trading. Investor’s greed and irrational behavior played a big rule to make the stock prices sky rocking as they were crazy to buy shares without judging the company fundamentals. Shares of the companies with closed operations and big accumulated losses were rising constantly due to investors high risk appetite that caused them to loss everything. Government had already taken many steps (including SEC reforms) to stabilize the market but failed as investors confidence is in the bottom level. Government and regulators should work together to identify the main speculators and should brought under proper trial to bring investors back to the market. Regulator should make reforms on Listing procedures and other faulty regulatory frameworks to ensure transparency and efficiency in the capital market and also should bring clear guidelines regarding Private Placements, Asset Revaluation, Insider Trading, Dealing with Omnibus Accounts etc.

 About stock exchange of Bangladesh

A stock exchange is a body that provides services to stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issuance and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, capital events including the payment of income and dividends. Bangladesh has two exchanges. Their acquaintances are given below:-

Historical Background of DSE

Dhaka Stock Exchange is the first & biggest stock exchange of the country. First incorporated as East Pakistan Stock Exchange Association Ltd in 28 April 1954 and started formal trading in 1956. It was renamed as East Pakistan Stock Exchange Ltd in 23 June 1962. Again, renamed as Dacca Stock Exchange Ltd in 13 May, 1964. After the liberation war in 1971 the trading was discontinued for five years. In 1976 trading restarted in Bangladesh, on 16 September 1986 DSE was started. The formula for calculating DSE all share price index was changed according to IFC on 1 November 1993. The automated trading was initiated in 10 August 1998 and started on 1 January 2001 and was upgraded time to time. The latest upgrading was done on 21st December, 2008. 15 Central Depository System was initiated in 24 January 2004.

Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) is registered as a Public Limited Company and its active-ties are regulated by its Articles of Association rules & regulations and bye-laws along with the Securities and Exchange Ordinance – 1969, Companies Act – 1994 & Securities & Exchange Commission Act – 1993.

In the beginning DSE was a physical stock exchange and used to trade in the open out-cry system. After that to secure smooth, timeliness & effective operation on the market, DSE uses automated trading system. The system was installed on 10th August, 1998 and was upgraded time to time. The latest upgrading was done on 21st December, 2008. 15.

There are 238 members and total 507 listed securities in Dhaka Stock Exchange. The working days of DSE is 5 days in a week without Saturday, Sunday public holidays & other government holidays. The trading time is from 11:00 am to 15:00 pm (local time). Investment options for an investor in this market are ordinary share, Debenture, Bond & Mutual funds.

In the beginning DSE had only one index. However, now there are three different indices which are DSI (All share), DGEN (A, B, G & N) and DSE 20.

 DSE at a Glance for the year 2011

 Management, trading and settlement

Management

The management and operation of Dhaka Stock Exchange is entrusted on a 25 members Board of Director. Among them 12 are elected from DSE members, another 12 are selected from different trade bodies and relevant organizations. The CEO is the 25th ex-officio member of the board.

The following organizations are currently holding positions in DSE Board:

       Bangladesh Bank

       ICB

       President of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh

       President of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industries

       President of Metropolitan Chambers of Commerce and Industries

       Professor of Finance Department of Dhaka University

       President of DCCI (Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry)

Trading

The Dhaka Stock Exchange is open for trading Sunday through Thursday between 10:30am – 2:30pm BST, with the exception of holidays declared by the Exchange in advance.

Settlement

      Trade in Public, Block & Odd-lot Market: Trade in Public, Block & Odd-lot market has two different settlement periods for A, B, G, N & Z categories shares and Settlement is executed through stock exchange clearing house. Here the settlement period is same for A, B, G & N. However, for Z category share settlement period is different.

1)      A, B, G & N Category: Settlement is done through DSE or CSE clearing house on T+1(pay in day) and T+3 (pay out day).

2)      Z Category: Settled on the basis of T+1 (pay in day) and T+9 (pay out day).

       Trade in Spot Market (A, B, G, N & Z category): Settlement period is same for all category shares traded in this market through clearing house that is T+0 (pay in day), T+1 (pay out day).

       Settlement of foreign traders: Foreign buyers and sellers settle their transaction between themselves involving custodian bank. It is processed within T+5 (pay in day) and T+6 (Pay out day).

Functions of DSE

The major functions are:

      Listing of Companies (As per Listing Regulations).

      Providing the screen based automated trading of listed Securities.

      Settlement of trading (As per Settlement of Transaction Regulations).

      Gifting of share / granting approval to the transaction/transfer of share outside the trading system of the exchange (As per Listing Regulations 42).

      Market Administration & Control.

      Market Surveillance.

      Publication of Monthly Review.

      Monitoring the activities of listed companies (As per Listing Regulations’).

      Investor’s grievance Cell (Disposal of complaint by laws 1997).

      Investors Protection Fund (As per investor protection fund Regulations 1999).

      Announcement of Price sensitive or other information about listed companies through online.

Increase of BO a/c

But due to scarcity of new securities market price increased substantially. This demand-supply mismatch along with inadequate investor’s knowledge made the stock prices in a new height and finally turned into a big depression that is still going on.

 2. increase of listed securities

The fundamental strength of the market essentially comes from financial strength of the listed companies. The market witnessed that last few years many fundamental companies with strong financial strength have been listed in the market. From the graph, it is seen that number of security listing are increasing year to year and highest amount is in the year 2011.

 But growth of market demand for stock was much then that of supply that inflated the market in recent years and made the market most volatile one in the region

3. Increase of Market Cap and Turnover value.

The graph shows that market capitalization and turnover of Dhaka stock exchange, prime bourse of Bangladesh increased substantially in consecutive three years that might be considered as a good factor for capital market development. But as the supply side response was poor, stock price might go up due to excess liquidity. SEC had nothing to do with this as they had no direct tool to control money supply and also they cannot force companies to come to the market.

The DSE General Index (DGEN) crossed 3000 marked point in December 2007 for the second time. Since the third quarter of FY09, the DGEN gained sharply and it jumped to 8918.51 in December 2010 increased by 5908.51 points or 197 percent from the index of end June 2009(3010 points).

4. Fluctuation of DGEN

From graph, we find that DSE general index, Daily trade value and market capitalization of DSE increased substantially during last 4 years. But number of listed securities remained almost the same during the period that implies that supply side response was less relative to demand side response and market capitalization and index increased due to increased demand for securities.

 5. Faulty listing methods

 In the year 2010, regulator introduced Book building method to attract new companies to the market. Some companies abused this opportunity to exploit maximum benefits from listing that inflated the market. SEC allows companies to float securities through IPO (Fixed Price and Book Building method), Direct Listing and Repeat IPO where Book building method is used mostly in the year 2010.

In Bangladesh, following companies used book building method for listing in the capital market:

(Million Tk.)Market Price (02/02/12) MJL Bangladesh Ltd.142.40152.40569068.10MI cement Ltd.101.60111.60305065.20Khulna power company Ltd.184.25194.25960043.20Ocean containers Ltd.(OCL)135145160046.20RAK Ceramics Ltd.3848131054.07

 From the Table it is found that first four companies charged very high premium for its share where and withdrawn huge amount of capital from market. When these companies asked for very high price, shares of other companies of same industry tends to rise on an expectation that it is highly undervalued that increases the general price index which is the most important factor behind the recent stock market volatility in Bangladesh.

6. Recently listed Companies with financial information

Twenty three companies (including three direct listing companies) raised new equity of Taka 18.2 billion in the capital market in FY10, higher than the Taka 5.9 billion raised by the sixteen companies in FY09.

The volume of public offerings in FY10 was oversubscribed more than nine times indicating the high demand of new securities in the primary market. Bonus shares valued at Taka 27.6 billion were issued in FY10 by one hundred and twenty one companies against retained profits, higher than the Taka 16.2 billion issued in FY09 by ninety one companies.

Currently 493 securities (Debt and Equity securities) are being traded in Dhaka stock exchange. Few numbers of companies are making fresh issue every year. 13, 18 and 10 companies listed their securities respectively in 2009, 2010 and 2011. [In appendix]

 Traditionally DSE used fixed price method for flotation of new companies. But fixed price method does not attract good companies always. So, to attract new companies, SEC decided to introduce Book building method that is a globally acceptable method for IPO. But in Bangladesh, Book Building method is handled very roughly that caused loss for millions of investors.

 7. Changes in Face Value (Stock Split) of Securities

With similar financial condition or weaker financial conditions lower face value companies were overvalued relative to higher face value companies in same industries. This situation was persisting for many years and regulator failed to identify the face value of all listed companies that created some overvalued securities in the market. Investors were eager to buy the securities of these companies that were going to change face and before split price of these were jumping.

 7. Stock price Manipulation:

Stock price manipulation was very common in last few years as some company’s stock price grew by more than 4000% in one year without any significant change in company fundamentals. Stock price was inflated with the help of serial trading by few numbers of big investors that was one of the reasons of recent collapse of stock market in Bangladesh.

8. Pre-IPO & IPO process:

Investigation committee considered that due to Pre-IPO & IPO manipulation share prices sky rocketed and that is the main reason for the share market crash. Manipulators illegally & unethically created a Kerb market in Pre-IPO stage. Without recommendation by the listing committee application for IPO was accepted. SEC did not examine abnormal asset revaluation and indicative price. As a result in Pre-IPO or IPO stage placement process and placement trade Kerb market overvalued share prices. This eventually generated liquidity crisis in the capital market.

 9. Investment of bank in the capital market

In 2010 & 11 banks and financial institutions invested huge amount of deposit money in the stock market. As a result share prices sky rocketed until December 2010. When Bangladesh Bank restricted more than 10 percent investment of deposited money, increased CRR and SLR ratio, created liquidity crisis and market crashed.

 10. Omnibus account

Investigation report found Omnibus accounts of ICB and merchant banks as another major reason behind the stock market debacle. Every branch of merchant bank operates only one omnibus account. There could be 3-10 thousands BO Accounts under the omnibus account which are not under the surveillance of SEC. So, information of individual accounts and its transaction 40 are kept only with merchant banks. As investigation reports shows that this kind of account made a lot of illegal transactions. It publishes name of 30 big players including ICB for a lot of suspicious transactions and says most manipulators traded from the omnibus accounts. It was also reported at least Taka 2.5 billion has been traded from hidden or omnibus accounts.

11. Asset revaluation & Rumor

 By taking chance of weak asset revaluation method companies have overvalued their asset. In this process dishonest auditors generated artificial audit reports. So, calculating of NAV on overvalued asset indicates wrong signal. Some companies issued Bonus shares against unrealized gain of revalued asset price which is a faulty accounting practice. There is rule to maintain provision against “deferred tax” during asset revaluation to pay tax in future, but companies are not following it.

12. Block placement

There was a lot of suspicious block trading of mutual funds. Some investors got enormous amount of placement time to time.

 13. Direct listing:

With the approval of SEC few companies have been directly listed in the stock exchange. These companies come to the market with inflated share prices.

 14. Suspicious transaction of top players

Investigation report reveals some names of individual and institutional investors as top buyers and sellers during abnormal increase and decrease of index in different time periods. The transactions of these investors were suspicious and affected the market heavily and liable for abnormal rise and fall.

15. Serial and artificial trading

 Some manipulators created artificial active trading environment among themselves through bulk transaction and increased share 41 prices. Moreover serial trading and price manipulation by many buy-sell orders through different accounts and broker houses which overheated the market.

The above reasons can be categorized in the following way:-

Background of the 1996 crash

The scenario of stock market crash in 1996 was totally different. The number of BO account holders was only 300,000 and most of them were very new in the market. During the crash of 1996 paper shares used to be sold in front of DSE and it was not easy for investors to indentify fake and original shares. The market was enough developed to gain confidence of investors. There was no automated trading sys-tem, surveillance was not enough strong and no circuit breakers as well as international protections.

From 1991 to the end of 1995 DGEN price index gained by 139.3% and reached to 834 point. But in 1996 the market experienced dramatic change and pushed the price index up by 337%. DGEN Index recorded high growth from July and stood at 3648.7 points or by 280.5% on 5th November 1996.

During the ‘Bull Run’ period new records were posted almost every day in both bourses for example market capitalization achieved to $2 billion which is equal to 20% of total GDP. As market became overheated government took step by selling state owned institutions and Taka 2 billion will be given to ICB for buying shares and support the mar-ket. But the steps taken by the government did not work.

Finally abnormal rise of share prices started to fall and Bangladesh stock market experienced its first crash of the history in 1996. The index lost over 233 points on Nov 6, 1996. After the bubble burst DGEN index dropped to its lowest point and stood at 957 in April 1997. It stood at around the same point where it was 10 months before and DSE General Price index lost almost 70 percent from its highest point of November 1996.

Reasons of the 1996 crash

Manipulation

Some foreign portfolio, 28 managers, few brokers and sponsors of few listed companies were behind the stock price manipulation in October 1996. As a result all share price index of DSE dramatically sky rocketed to 3600 point from 1000 point in six months time. Few foreign & local investors that had inside information made huge profit and a lot of general investors paid heavily.

Demand Supply mismatch         

 The cause of stock market crash in 1996 was the failure of market regulators mentioned by Afroz (2006). Stock exchanges did not take any action against the dramatic price in-crease of listed securities during June to November 1996. Bubble formed due to abnormal demand of securities by new investors where the numbers of listed securities were very few. The reason of huge influx of investors was political stability in the country and bringing confidence in investor`s mind.

 Defective (DVP) system

 The delivery versus payment (DVP) system of trading used to allow buyer-seller to settle their transactions between them without stock exchange participation. Many brokers/dealers used it as a tool to show fake trading to increase demand of share from the general investor’s side. According to Bangladesh Bank analysis that there was an unauthorized kerb market consisting of over 25,000 investors outside the stock exchange where securities were traded at a very high price. Moreover, SEC could not handle the crisis for its defective infrastructure. Weak regulations and surveillances could not monitor market manipulators and market intermediaries. Even information inefficiency, artificial financial statements certified by chartered accountants, false information and rumor were other important factors that overheated the market and burst the bubble.

Background of the 2011 crash

History of the stock market crashes show that ‘Bull Run’ before a stock market crash is kind of normal phenomenon. There was no exception for the stock market crash of Bangladesh in 2010-11.

According to CPD (2011), the total number of BO Account holders on 20th December, 2010 reached to 3.21 million though the number was 1.25 million in December 2009. Most of these new investors don’t have enough knowledge about the stock market but invest their most or all savings in the market.

As CPD (2011) found, internet-based trading operation, opening branches of brokerage houses across the country, easy access to the market information, arranging a countrywide ‘share mela (fair)’ are the factors for increasing investors. But supplies of new securities through IPOs were not enough to chase huge capital of too many investors in the market.

Last couple of years broad money made excess liquidity and the main motive behind it was Bangladesh Bank`s ex-change rate policy. A big portion of this excess liquidity had gone to the stock market but there were very few shares in the market. The policy that was adopted by BB to grow economy by increased exports & investment eventually misguided and ended up blowing the mother of all bubbles.

Moreover Security & Exchange Commissions was not capable to monitor the market conditions properly. Due to the poor monitoring & market surveillance share prices of Z Category Companies and small companies increased dramatically

15th December, BB increased CRR and SLR by 0.5 percent and increased to 19 & 6 percent. Another important directive initiated by BB was withdrawal of illegally invested industrial loans by December 31, 2010. As a lot of the reserved money was invested in capital market, banks started selling shares and withdrawing that money from the market. By the time investors became panicked. To handle the disastrous & assure the panicked investors BB extended its deadline for submitting and adjusting loans. For the merchant banks the deadline was January 15, 2011 and for the commercial bank February 15, 2011.

Institutional investors including financial institutions started selling shares from the be-ginning of December to show high return on investment at their balance sheet. As the Institutions & banks started selling their shares from the beginning of December the turnover of DSE was the highest ever in its history on 5th December. (Raisa, 2011)

19th December was a historical day of the financial year 2010-11 in Bangladesh stock market. On this day DSE witnessed its biggest one day fall in 55 years history until the date with losing 551.76 points or 6.71 percent. The losing index was even higher than 284.78 points or 3.32 percent of 12th December. Prices started to nosedive in an hour after the trading started and about 200 points were wiped off. In the middle of the session it recovered little bit and ended up the session at 7654 point.

 Comparison between two years

SWOT analysis:

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieve that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.

A SWOT analysis must first start with defining a desired end state or objective. A SWOT analysis may be incorporated into the strategic planning model. Strategic Planning has been the subject of much research.

Strengths: characteristics of the business or team that give it an advantage over others in the industry.

 Weaknesses: are characteristics that place the firm at a disadvantage relative to others.

 Opportunities: external chances to make greater sales or profits in the environment.

 Threats: external elements in the environment that could cause trouble for the business.

Strength, weakness, opportunity, and threats (SWOT) of Bangladesh Stock Market are given below:

 Strength:

      The first and for most thing of strength of Bangladesh stock market is its ability to provide high return.

      Regulatory body of Bangladesh stock market that protects the interest of the investors.

      Large number of securities which provides medium for investment.

      Large number of Brokers who plays a role of facilitator for investment.

 Weakness:

    The weak point of Bangladesh stock market is its volatility.

      It is a kind of gambling where no guarantee of return and some time it depends on luck also.

Opportunity:

      Stock market provides an opportunity to money lender and money seeker to invest and use money for their plan.

      It provides an opportunity to the investor to be the owner of the company and contribute in the business decision of the company.

      Stock market is a kind of indicator of the economic growth of the country where it provides an opportunity to gain according to the inflation of the country or more than that.

Threats:

      There are many competitors of stock market such as post office savings, public provident fund, company fixed deposits, fixed deposits with bank etc. which provides fixed and assured returns.

      Changing of economic condition.

      Capital market instrument is highly risky then money market.

      Changing of government rules and regulations.

      Speed of growth in Capital Market not complemented by the controlling agency.

 Regression analysis

In this analysis, Turnover value and M.Cap are taken as independent variable where DGEN is taken as dependent variable. Here I try to find out the relationship between the DGEN and independent variables Turnover value and M.Cap.

 Interpretation of R:

It is the coefficient of correlation. It shows the positive or negative correlation among Turnover value and M.Cap with DGEN.  Here the value of R is .966that indicates that the independent variables Turnover value and M.Cap are strongly positively related with the dependent variable DGEN.

Interpretation of R square:

It is the coefficient of determination. If the independent variable is changed by some units then the dependent variables also became changed and how much changed is done by the independent variables, is shown by R square. Here the value of R square comes .934 meaning that 93.4% changes in the dependent variable are happening for the changes of the independent variables. And the least part (1 – .934) = 0.066 is changed by other factors which are not considered.

Interpretation of Adjusted R Square:

It is the actual coefficient of determination. If another independent variable is added then the R also became changed and Adjusted R Square shows logically how much value change is possible and that’s why the value of Adjusted R Square is always less than the value of R square. The value of Adjusted R square is .919. It shows actually how much dependent variable (DGEN is changed for the changing of independent variables Turnover value and M.Cap.

Interpretation of Standard Error of Estimate:

It shows how much error or variability stands between the predicted result and actual observed result. Here the value is 196.91543 that show the amount of variability of our predicted result and the actual result acquired from the real observation.

Interpretation of Regression Sum of Squares (SSR):

How much error is reduces by using regression rather than mean is shown by SSR. The value comes 4900558.846 showing the extent to which the error can be minimized through using the multiple regression tools.

Interpretation of Error Sum of Squares (SSE):

Here the Residual is SSE. It is shown how much error is not possible to remove by using regression because of some independent factors, which is not considered. The value comes 348981.194 showing the extent to which error is remaining after the regression and can be minimized with the increment of the dependent variable.

Interpretation of Total Sum of Squares (SST):

The sum of SSR and SSE together forms the SST. In this observation the value is 5249540.040 that come after adding the SSR (4900558.846) and SSE (348981.194).

Interpretation of Degrees of Freedom (DF):

Here, the value 2 is degrees of freedom for the numerator and the value 9 is degrees of freedom for the denominator.

Interpretation of F Distribution:

F Distribution shows whether our taken model is rejected and accepted as a whole or on an average, but not individually. So it is showing whether there is any relation between dependent variable and independent variables as a whole.

Interpretation of F value:

The Null Hypothesis is that the Turnover value and M.Cap are related to DGEN. It means if we give any value to X then the value of DGEN became changed. The DGEN is dependent on Turnover value and M.Cap.

So Alternative Hypothesis is that the Turnover value and M.Cap are unrelated to DGEN. It means if we give any value to X then the value of DGEN will become constant. The DGEN is independent of Turnover value and M.Cap.

Interpretation of Table Value:

At a 10% significance level, for 2 numerator degrees of freedom which is regression and for 9 denominator degrees of freedom which is residual, the table value is 3.36.

Interpretation of Acceptance Criterion:

If the calculated value of F is less than the table value of F then the null hypothesis is accepted subsequently the alternative hypothesis is rejected.

Interpretation of Rejection Criterion:

 If the calculated value of F is greater than the table value of F then the null hypothesis is rejected subsequently the alternative hypothesis is accepted.

As the calculated value of F is 63.191, which is greater than the table value of F 3.36, so the Null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted. Hence the conclusion comes that the T value and M.cap are not related that means negatively related to DGEN.

 Ŷ = a +b₁ X₁+b₂X₂

Ŷ = –1203.865 + 2.471E-9X₁₊3.504E-8X₂

In this regression equation, the relationship between DGEN with Turnover value and M.Cap has been demonstrated.

Dependent Variable Ŷ = DGEN

Independent Variable X= Turnover value and M.Cap

Here, a is constant and b₁ and b₂ are the slope of X₁ and X₂.

If Turnover value and M.Cap is zero then a = Ŷ= -1203.865
Here, Ŷ = -1203.865 is Y intercept. It shows that the DGEN of the DSE is negative because the DSE will have some DGEN without Turnover value and M.Cap in a given year as there may be some DGEN of previous years.

Now, the value of b₁ and b₂ or the slope of X₁ and X₂ are 2.471E-9 and 3.504E-8 it means if the volumes of Turnover value and M.Cap increase by TK. around tk.2 and 3 then the DGEN decreases for TK. 2 and 3 points assuming all other variables are constant.

Findings

After preparing this report, it has been come to my mind that only one factor cannot be mentioned greatly for this share market crash. But it is the collective of various factors who are responsible for this huge crash. The followings are some findings that are….

      Financial institutions are the biggest investors in the market and there aggressive involvement increased market liquidity manifold in recent years. Financial Institutes could invest more than 10% of their demand and time liabilities to the   stock market and greater involvement of financial institutes increased the liquidity in the market that created a bubble in the stock market.SEC must be aware about this.

      Number of listings in the DSE and the procedures of listings were not fair and square.

      Book building method was not followed properly in case of share pricing. For this reason share price especially IPO pricing was overvalued. It can be said that by taking chance of weak asset revaluation method companies have overvalued their asset also.

      Demand and supply side of stock in the stock market were mismatched which resulted a great crash in the 55 year history of Bangladesh.

      Stock price manipulation and insider trading was very common phenomena in the stock market in which SEC did not perform its inspection clearly.

      Omnibus accounts of ICB and merchant banks as another major reason behind the stock market debacle. This kind of account made a lot of illegal transactions and manipulation which was in favorable for the stock market.

      Misunderstanding between stock market and stock exchanges was very poor and irregularities to take actions against the manipulators were also responsible for this crash.

      During the time of crash year Block trading, circuit trading and direct listing have also been noticeable greatly.

Recommendation

All are responsible for crash. So proper activities have to be adopted by everybody from their own situations to restore the previous situation of the market. Some of them are in the following….

Recommendations for the Government

 There is no doubt that the failure of the government in making various decisions regarding capital market played role behind the recent crash:-

      Government should ensure the supply of fundamentally strong shares in the market to meet the demand which will make the market efficient as investors would not go for buying junk shares. For ensuring the supplies of such shares, Government can offload the shares of different companies which it possesses now. It also can urge the private limited companies to go public by offering tax benefits through fiscal policy. Even it can offer shares to the public for infrastructural development work like constructing big bridges, highways and power stations.

      Government must ensure the appointment of skilled and capable personnel in different regulatory bodies and must give punishment to the persons responsible for any kinds of irregularities.

      The responsible persons of the Government should refrain from delivering irrelevant, irresponsible and sensitive speeches which many of them did before.

      Government should ensure more active merchant banks to participate in the smooth building of a sound stock market.

      Government must ensure that the chairman and members of the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) are honest and skilled. Any sort of direct or indirect involvement of any of the ICB members and officials in the stock market must be stopped in any way.

      Government should delegate all power to the SEC to take legal actions against the criminals. Even if necessary, new Act may be passed in the Parliament in this regard.

      Flow of black money in the capital market must be restricted as it can never bring any good results in the long run other than creating bubble in the stock market the blast of which nothing but a disaster.

Recommendations for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

 SEC as the guardian of capital market should play significant role to make it march forward. It must ensure the followings:

      SEC must ensure that neither of its members nor any of its officials is involved either directly or indirectly with the transactions in the stock market.

      The monitoring and surveillance should be strengthen so that none can get chance to gamble.

      SEC must have its own certified Chartered Accountants to ensure the accuracy of the Financial Statements of the listed companies and they should give punishment if the books of accounts are not accurately audited.

      SEC must rethink about the rule of disclosure of quarterly financial reports by the companies because many of the companies misused it as a vehicle of misguiding the investors. In fact, it became a common practice of most of the listed companies to show high quarterly EPS in its un-audited quarterly report to bring down P/E ratio. In some cases, it is seen that a few companies’ annual audited EPS for the year ended 2010 was lower than its accumulated EPS of three quarters.

      It must ensure speedy disposal of decision for market operation and all the decisions should be taken considering the long term effect on the market.

      To bring fundamentally strong private companies in the capital market, there is no alternative of Book Building Method of IPO. So, the postponed Book Building Method must be reintroduced with necessary correction to resist all sorts of manipulation.

      It is high time for SEC to take a decision regarding the stocks in the OTC market because huge amount of money has been blocked due to inefficient OTC market. The companies in the OTC market should either be de-listed and their assets and liabilities should be settled or these companies may be brought in the main market through acquisition by the Government or by the interested entrepreneurs restarting production of those enterprises.

Recommendations for DSE

 Dhaka Stock Exchange has important role to play as the monitoring authority of the Broker Houses. So, it needs to play vital role by ensuring the followings:

      It must ensure proper monitoring of the brokerage houses for which more skilled manpower should be appointed in the Monitoring and Surveillance Team.

      Any sort of irregularities in case of trading should be identified promptly and immediate action should be taken.

      The operating software of the stock exchange should be updated as often these fail to take immediate sale or buy order. So, it must bring new software within the shortest possible time to bridge a gap between the prices of script in stock exchange

       Now there is a common practice by DSE to ask for query for price hike of any script which is nothing but a routine work. To make such query fruitful, visible action should be taken if any involvement of sponsor/directors is identified.

      To aware investors having no or insufficient skills about the investment in stock market should be trained through different training programs, seminars and motivating fair.

       Last but not the least that the stock exchanges need to be demutualized as it is the demand of time now to have a new corporate governance structure for more effective conflict management among market participants, and to make more quick decision with greater flexibility.

Recommendations for Bangladesh Bank

 Though Bangladesh Bank is the regulatory body of Money Market; but its decisions are also reflected in the capital market as the money market and capital market are interrelated. In this regard it has the following roles to play:

      It must ensure that the Banks and Other financial institutions’ exposures do not exceed the limit from the very beginning. But in the recent slump it failed to do so as it could not monitor the involvement in the early periods while it put pressure on the banks to readjust their capital market exposures at the eleventh hour which accelerate a huge sale pressure from their side.

      It must ensure the proper functioning of the Merchant Banks through arranging money from the parent company to mitigate liquidity crisis.

      It should keenly monitor the loan of the commercial banks to industrial sector and take regular feedback so that no industrial loan may flow to the capital market. It is found that in case of recent catastrophe, it failed to do so.

Recommendations for Institutional Buyers

 Institutional Buyers (Mutual Funds, Merchant Banks etc.) ensure balance in capital market through reacting according to the interaction between demand and supply. But in recent past they completely did the opposite as when there was huge sales pressure in the market instead of buying, they also sold shares in a large scale resulting further decline. Their behavior in that case was not different from individual investors.

      They must show mature behavior to ensure balance in the stock market by buying shares when there is sale pressure and vice-versa.

      In providing margin loan, they must follow the rules as prescribed by SEC as well.

      They should advise their client giving emphasis on the benefits of the clients instead of thinking their own benefits only.

      At the time of huge decline they should not be involved in forced/trigger sale of clients ‘shares without giving them any chance to adjust their loan.

       All sorts of transactions through omnibus accounts should be restrained.

Recommendations for Individual Investors

 No matter what is the reason of a crash, individual investors are the ultimate losers. Hence, it is their own responsibility to take care of their own money and they ought to consider the following things while taking investment decisions.

      Before investing in a particular script they must analyze the key factors of that company to justify whether the company is fundamentally strong. Such factors include EPS, P/E Ratio, dividend policy, future growth, industry average etc.

      In analyzing financial strength of a company they must consider the audited annual reports instead of quarterly un-audited report as often these information is not accurate or do not reflect the real position of the company.

      They must restrict themselves from buying junk shares and taking whimsical investment decision.

      They must build their portfolio in a way which will involve at least three or four different types of fundamentally strong shares from different industries. It should also contain shares considering both long term and midterm benefits.

       Instead of being traders, the retail investors need to think of being investors.

      They ought to keep some cash for emergency so that they might buy more shares (fundamentally strong) which they bought earlier when there is a big decline in price.

      They should not buy on the basis of rumor or following advices of the persons who do not possess sufficient knowledge about capital market investment.

      They ought to participate in different seminars and training programs relating to stock market to enhance their knowledge and skill in making stock market investment decisions.

      They must know that both gain and loss are the indispensable parts of stock market.

      Instead of looking for gain, sometimes they must accept loss with patience so that they may recover the loss in future through higher gain.

      Above all, they must understand that perseverance and patience is the key to success in investing in capital market.

Conclusion

From our analysis we have found that major indicators of the country’s major stock exchange is becoming more volatile over time and the regulators are not efficient enough to guard this volatility. But, for a developing country like Bangladesh, the importance of sound development of the market cannot be undermined. Although the SEC has been trying to maintain a continuous flow in the market, very often its role meets the broad economic objectives. In order to make the market less volatile, SEC itself should be strengthen both in terms of number of manpower and quality of the professionals involved with special focus on independent research, monitoring mechanism and prompt decision making.

Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Bangladesh and government should take the short term and long term initiatives to stabilize the market. They should encourage more public limited companies to offer more share to meet the current demands. Income tax rebate, Injection of Market Stabilization Fund, Mandatory holding certain percentage of share among the board of directors, short term incentives packages should be introduced to get back the confidence among the existing investors. Regulatory bodies of Bangladesh stock market must educate the current and potential investors about the market mechanism and provide them the accurate information so that investors trade their shares carefully. Unless, there are any corrective measures, Bangladeshi stock market will be facing this irrational downward of DGEN Index again in the near future.

To guide and restore the confidence of individual investor in capital market, the regulatory authority should take necessary actions to encourage corporate governance rating among listed companies, which will enable investors to differentiate the good governance companies from the rest and can then attach higher value to those firms as well. And, without improving the governance of the market and eliminating scope of manipulation, it will be difficult to attract good scripts at the desired level. In this endeavor, regulators must adapt continuously to the changes in the economy and the pressures of globalization.

References

AiDz, (2011), “What can we learn from Bangladesh’s stock market crash?”. Available from: http://www.pnoytrader.com/2011/01/learn-from-bangladeshs-stock-market-crash/[Accessed on 14.04.2012]

Hossain, Md. Toufique (n.d), “Bangladesh stock market crisis: diagnosis, remedies, and prospects”. Available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/86557899/Bangladesh-Stock-Market-Crisis [Accessed on 05.05.2012]

Ibrahim Khalid Committee sharer probe Report (www.mof.gov.bd/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=169&Itemid=1)

Ahmed, H. U., & Samad,  Q. A. (2008). Performance Level of Dhaka Stock Market: A Quantitative Analysis. Daffodil International University Journal of Business and Economics, Vol. 3 No. 1, January 2008.

Ahmed, M. N. & Imam, O. M. (2007). Macroeconomic Factors and Bangladesh Stock Market: Impact analysis through Co integration Approach.

International Review of Business Research Paper, pp.21-35, Vol.3, No.5.

Uddin, M. B. (2009). Determinants of market price of stock: A stock on bank leasing and insurance companies of Bangladesh. Journal of modern Accounting and Auditing, Jul. 2009, Vol.5, No.7 (Serial No. 50).

Newspapers of Bangladesh

Websites

Central Depository Bangladesh Limited, www.cdbl.com

Dhaka Stock Exchanges, www.dsebd.org

Security and exchange commission, www.secbd.org.26.16