Dhaka, June 11 (bdnews24.com) – Apparently frustrated over failure to evoke a positive response from the capital market despite announcing a raft of measures in the budget he proposed on Thursday, the finance minister on Monday dubbed the bourses 'naughty'.

A M A Muhith was making a speech in parliament on the supplementary budget.

The market experienced a topsy-turvy trend after it reached its peak in Dec 2010 and small investors lost confidence in the market even after intervention from the prime minister herself.

"It is a naughty share market and I don't want to make any comment on it," he said.

He would make comment only after completing the demutialisation process of the stock exchanges, Muhith added.

"Many say that whenever I talk, it has a negative impact on the market," he said.

"You will see some basic differences after December."

He said 1.1 million investors were into with the stock market.

Earlier, Workers Party lawmaker Rashed Khan Menon in his speech on the supplementary budget said although the finance minister had stopped talking about the market, "the declining trend is not stopping".

If market manipulators were not brought to justice, it would be very difficult to restore confidence of the small investors, Menon said.

Independent lawmaker Mohammad Fazlul Azim in his cut motion speech said the finance minister had previously dubbed share market as 'speculative' and now he had called it 'naughty'.

"I don't know what will happen to the market tomorrow after his comment," he said.

He alleged that the minister had failed to bring the manipulators to book.

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