Dhaka stocks gain as DGEN moves above 2600-mark

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FE Report
Dhaka stocks made a smart move Wednesday as the benchmark index DGEN crossed the 2600-mark after one month with a significant increase in the turnover on a continued buying spree of the retailers.
The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) will remain closed today (Thursday) due to a public holiday on the occasion of the Christmas Day, the biggest religious festival of the Christian community.
The benchmark DSE General Index (DGEN), the All Shares Price Index (DSI) and the DSE20 (DS20) blue chip index rose 32.03 points, 20.45 points and 31.23 points to close at 2630.14, 2176.05 and 2196.15 respectively.
Issues of the insurance, IT and pharmaceutical sectors and most of the financial institutions led the gain.
The investors, particularly retailers and big individual investors, continued to pour funds on securities seizing the opportunity of lower prices of the stocks expecting healthy returns in days to come, bringing the market back on track, according to the market operators.
The institutional investors, who already completed their year-end loan adjustments, also started to pump their funds into the market, they said.
However, trading at the prime bourse began showing an upward trend from the very outset as the benchmark index continued to gain until end of trade.
'The market got back its pulse that was lost due to the long bearish spell lingering for the last two and a half months,' said Abdul Awal, managing director of the Multi Securities and Investment Limited. 'My view is that if everything goes well in the political arena, the gain will sustain,' he said.
Awal also said the retailers and big individual investors chose to chase stocks on lower prices expecting good profits later, he said adding that some institutional investors started to inject their funds.
'However, the rise of the market during this moment is nothing new. If you look at the market trend over the years, the market usually remains slow in December due to year-end loan adjustments by the financial institutions and the market starts to rise from around January,' he pointed out.
Out of 236 issues traded, 162 gained, 62 declined and 12 remained unchanged. The day's total turnover jumped to Tk 2.93 billion against the previous day's Tk 2.43 billion.