The persistent price erosion of Dhaka stocks finally came to a halt Wednesday after seven straight session, with decrease in the turnover.
The market barometers - the benchmark Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) Genera Index (DGEN), All Shares Price Index (DSI) and DSE-20 Index (DS20), blue chips, gained 7.97 points, 1.40 points and 36.45 points to end at 2772.51, 2416.69 and 2577.90 respectively.
Of the top ten gainers, mutual fund stocks accounted for eight after the securities regulator approved the mutual fund rules the previous day, restricting the funds from issuing preemptive rights or bonus shares to its unit holders.
Stock prices of the mutual funds dropped in the range between seven per cent and 18 per cent on the day.
Beginning with the downbeat mood, trading fluctuated from the very outset of the trading as the benchmark went into the green in first hour of the trade, pushing it up more than 38 points and later, it shed some points losing over 25 points in mid-session.
But just before close of the trade, the trading ended with the benchmark landing in the positive territory, making the investors somewhat composed.
The market moved to the positive territory in the final minutes of the trade as the investors purchased the shares taking opportunity of lower price that saw erosion for seven consecutive days, according to the market operators.
Some, however, say, the morale booster for the shaky and massively battered investors was the meeting among the Securities and Exchange Commission, DSE, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) and leading merchant bankers to be held today (Thursday). The meeting might announce some steps to pull out the market from confidence crisis.
The authorities deployed a contingent of law enforcing agencies at the DSE on the day to tackle any trouble.
The total turnover declined to Tk 2.87 billion against previous day's Tk 3.11 billion.
The gainers dominated the losers as out of 225 issues traded, 120 gained, 93 declined and 12 remained unchanged. The total market capitalisation, however, slightly rose to Tk 943.70 billion from Tk 942.56 billion previously.
Not a single share of the Rupali Bank Limited that resumed trading after over eight months, was traded for the fourth consecutive day as the prime bourse imposed lower limit circuit breaker.
The ACI Limited was the top turnover leader with shares worth Tk 208.76 million traded, followed by UCBL Tk 189.67 million, Square Pharma Tk 141.13 million, Beximco Pharma Tk 135.08 million, AIMS First Mutual Fund Tk 99.99 million, Keya Cosmetics Tk 94.81 million, BATBC Tk 85.79 million, Gramen One Mutual Fund Tk 81.61 million and AB Bank Tk 78.21 million changing hands.
Stock prices of the AIMS First Mutual Fund had the biggest fall of 20 per cent, followed by Grameen One Mutual Fund 19.41 per cent, 6th ICB 14.68 per cent, 1st BSRS 14.35 per cent, 8th ICB 14.68 per cent, ICB AMCL 1st 12.18 per cent, 7th ICB 11.86 per cent and 3rd ICB 14.68 per cent.
Share prices of the state-run gas distribution company Titas dropped 1.09 per cent to close at Tk 314 per share.
In its 16th trading day, 202,700 shares out of total 2,141,728 were sold on both the stock exchanges - DSE and CSE, according to the ICB, the sales agent. The company will have to offload around 8.5 million shares in 30 trading days since its debut as per regulations.
BD Thai, Peoples Insurance, Pragati Insurance, Pioneer Insurance , DESCO, Jamuna Oil, BGIC and Beximco Fisheries were the top gainers on the day.
