DSEX tumbles to three-week low

Turnover dips below Tk 5.0b-mark after one-month

FE Report | December 12, 2018 00:00:00

Stocks extended losses for the fourth straight session on Tuesday.

The key index slumped to three-week low, as cautious investors continued selling spree.

Market insiders said election sentiments are in the minds of investors and many of them have taken a cautious stance while rising non-performing loans in the banking sector prompted some of them to sell-off.

"Banks’ provisioning shortfall coupled with rising non-performing loans in the banking sector dampened investors' confidence," commented EBL Securities in its regular market analysis.

The market opened on positive note and the key index rose about 14 points within first 30 minutes of trading. But, rest of the session went down steadily.

At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 19.93 points or 0.37 per cent to settle at three-week low to 5,275.

DSEX eroded about 86 points in the past four consecutive sessions.

According to LankaBangla Securities, the downward shift in the index is mainly driven by negative changes in large-cap sectors like telecommunication, pharmaceuticals, banking and financial institutions.

Telecommunication sector posted the highest loss of 1.10 per cent, followed by pharmaceuticals with 0.80 per cent and engineering 0.30 per cent, banking 0.20 per cent.

Among the large-cap issues, Khulna Power posted the highest loss 0f 5.40 per cent, followed by GlaxoSmithKline 3.30 per cent, RAK Ceramics 2.0 per cent, Brac Bank 1.20 per cent and Dutch-Bangla Bank 1.20 per cent.

The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, saw fractional loss of 0.98 point to close at 1,848 and the DSE Shariah Index shed 6.58 points to close at 1,213.

The total transaction declined to 4.83 billion, which was 15 per cent lower than the previous day's turnover of Tk 5.68 billion.

The port city bourse, the Chittagong Stock Exchange, also kept losing with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -losing 40 points to settle at 16,162 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -falling 24 points to finish at 9,781.

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