Stock market unruffled by ‘Feb 20 Event’: CSX official
THE emergence of the Kingdom’s third community transmission, dubbed the “February 20 Community Event”, has not had a discernible impact on stock prices, according to Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX) vicechairman Ha Jong-weon.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on February 20 announced the Kingdom’s third outbreak of Covid-19 community transmissions after 32 people tested positive in just over 10 hours.
The Ministry of Health on February 24 recorded 40 more cases of Covid-19, with 38 linked to the February 20 community transmission. This brings the total cases of Cambodia’s third local transmission to 137 in just four days, most of whom are Chinese.
CSX’s Ha said the bourse’s share prices had remained rather stable with no significant fluctuations in the three trading days since the prime minister’s announcement.
The CSX Index rose 2.60 points or 0.41 per cent to close at 641.88 on February 24 with 55,268 shares traded worth 139,793,300 riel ($34,230). This was the largest percentage increase since January 29’s 2.15 per cent rise to 654.70 points.
Ha said: “We will have to wait and see [how things develop over] the coming days.
The [newly] found positive cases so far don’t seem to have [had] a great impact on the stock market yet.
“However, if this trend continues and become uncontrollable, the impacts are bound to happen as the stock market reflect[s] the economy of a country as a whole and no country [is] immune from the impact during such pandemic.”
He also pointed out that
the bourse had seen minimal slowdown in stock trading amid fears of Covid-19 spread within the community.
“We still haven’t seen any major drop [in] activity, at least for now. Moreover, we’re also organising [a] ‘stock trading competition’ intending to raise public awareness [of the] stock market and encourage the public to learn about stock investment as well,” Ha said.
The Kingdom’s 13 listed
firms – seven stock-listed and six corporate bond-listed – have raised a combined $253 million as of September 30, while the stock index increased by 58.37 per cent in 2019 over 2018, only to dip 14.93 per cent in 2020, CSX data show.
Last year, two companies listed stocks and three listed bonds. The five firms raised a combined $92 million in January-September, the data show.