Thousands of investors clashed with police in Dhaka on Wednesday after the Bangladesh stock market saw another sharp fall and triggered an automatic halt in trading. Protesters threw bricks at office windows, smashed up vehicles and blocked roads in the commercial heart of the capital as the market slid for the fifth day in a row.
The benchmark DGEN share index rose 80 percent in 2010 but has been highly volatile since peaking on December 5 at a record 8,918.15 points. It has since fallen 22.5 percent, with each new slide triggering protests. Trading was halted at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) on Wednesday when a new circuit breaker was activated as the index fell more than 225 points, or 3.2 percent, in just 86 minutes.
The market opened late as regulators implemented the new system, but shares still went into a free-fall. "Up to 4,000 investors have been protesting in front of the DSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission. They have damaged cars and hurled bricks at police and vehicles," local police chief Tofazzal Hossain told AFP.
He added that police were struggling to break up the protests. On January 10, the DSE fell a record 8.9 percent, prompting a halt in trading and major street protests. Riot police used tear gas to disperse investors protesting outside the stock exchange, where crowds set alight tyres and office furniture and chanted slogans against the government and regulators. The markets then rose 1,012.65 points or 15.58 percent - a record rise - the following day, before beginning its current slide. New, small-time share owners have poured into the Dhaka stock market, with the number of investors nearly doubling in the past 15 months to about 3.3 million people.
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