The DSE General Index (DGEN), introduced in 2001 on the country’s main bourse, will be taken off the screen on Thursday and replaced by DSEX as the main index.
The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) announced the decision on Tuesday on its website.
DGEN, calculated in a wrong method, has been the most talked-about issue among the retail investors over the last five years. The index skyrocketed during 2009-2010 before nosediving to a record low.
It had been declining for two and a half years, prompting the investors to go for violent agitation.
Amid demonstrations, market regulator SEC and other related stakeholders made futile efforts to change the index’s trajectory. They also held several rounds of meeting with the Prime Minister, who asked them to take measures to keep the index above a certain level.
Efforts to check the continuous rise in the index similarly went in vain in 2010.
Now the DGEN, which impacted everyone in the capital market in last 12 years, will remain only in their memory.
Kashem Ahmed, who is in the market for around 20 years, told bdnews24.com: “I was tied with the index for last 12 years. Probably I did not think about anything as much as I thought about the index.”
The DGEN was introduced with a base point of 817.62 and is being omitted when it was 4342.31 points.
The index passed its first seven years without unusual fluctuations but saw a sharp spike in 2009 after the Awami League-led government assumed office.
Besides the retail investors, banks and other financial institutions pumped huge funds into the capital market to make a mint.
The DGEN was at 2765 when the Sheikh Hasina-led Cabinet took oath on Jan 6, 2009 and it tripled to around 9000 on Dec 5, 2010.
The faults in the DGEN first came to the fore in November, 2009 when Grameenphone (GP) was listed on the DSE.
Later, on Jan 28 this year, the regulator launched a new index, the DSEX, developed by the US-based financial service organisation Standard and Poor’s.
The new index is based on the free-float method used by the world’s major indices.
Source: Bd news24