DSE keeps on sliding despite impressive debut by KPCL

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FE Report
Dhaka stocks fell for the fifth session Sunday on continuous price corrections by most shares and slide by market heavyweight, Grameenphone, despite an impressive debut by the country's first private power plant.
Khulna Power Company Limited, owned by Summit Group, rose 40.88 per cent to close at Tk 273.60 a share on debut. Its opening price was set at Tk 194.20 by institutional investors using Book Building Method.
But the surge by one of the fastest growing companies proved to be insufficient to halt continuous slide of the DSE with the benchmark DSE General Index (DGEN) shedding 0.41 per cent or 22.54 points to end at 5467.12 amid volatile trading.
The broader All Shares Price Index (DSI) lost 0.30 per cent or 13.86 points to 4488.72 while DSE-20 Index comprising blue chips rose 0.52 per cent or 15.30 points to 2919.96.
"The market is going through price adjustments as the season of corporate declarations by most of the companies has almost come to an end," said a fund manager.
"Investors usually lose their interest in companies that have already declared dividends," he said, the decline was led by a 2.15 per cent drop by Grameenphone, which makes up one-fifth of the DSE.
Stock dealers said some investors remained cautious ahead of the national budget expected to be announced on June 10.
Chittagong Vegetable Oil Industries, a junk share, gained 12.48 per cent defying a reported move by the Securities and Exchange Commission to probe its "abnormal price hike".
Banking was the top gainers among the sectors, rising by 1.78 per cent on rallies by the most weighted financial issue, Islami Bank, EXIM Bank and Bank Asia.
Islami Bank closed 3.53 per cent higher as investors found its shares fundamentally strong and its valuation lower than market standard.
Fellow Shariah-based financial institution, EXIM Bank, was up by 4.52 per cent on anticipation of a better-than-expected dividend declaration by the end of this month.
Bank Asia went up by 5.05 per cent after it announced 40 per cent stock dividend and some 93 per cent jump in its net profits for 2009. The company declared 23 per cent dividend in 2008.
Leasing sector rose 1.30 per cent riding on IDLC and Prime Finance, which climbed 3.39 per cent and 4.0 per cent respectively. Insurance sector closed 1.13 per cent higher.
Decliners took a fair lead over the losers as out of 242 issues traded, 99 closed positive, 149 negative and five remained unchanged.