Dhaka stocks gain for second straight day

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FE Report
Dhaka stocks gained for the second straight session Tuesday, led by banks, non-banking financial institutions and insurance issues.
The benchmark index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE)--DSE General Index (DGEN)--rose 32.12 points or 1.28 per cent to close at 2528.17 from the previous 2496.04.
Shares prices of most of the mutual funds, pharmaceutical, and fuel and power sector issues ended mixed on the day.
The two other market barometers also ended on a positive note. The DSE All Shares Price Index (DSI) gained 24.37 points to finish at 2104.70 while the DSE-20 blue chip index was up 17.80 points to end at 1940.40.
Investors chased the stocks, particularly banks that witnessed a continuous fall in the last two weeks, finding their prices lucrative, which has sent the market into the positive territory, analysts said.
The turnover decreased slightly as it stood at Tk 4.05 billion, down from the previous day's Tk 4.25 billion. The gainers took a strong lead over the losers as out of 248 issues traded, 146 advanced, 92 declined and 10 remained unchanged.
The Summit Power was the turnover leader with shares worth Tk 395.09 million changing hands. Its share transaction got a boost on the news that the Summit Uttaranchol Power Company Ltd, a subsidiary of Summit Power, started commercial operation of a power plant with a capacity of 33 MW at Maona in Gazipur.
The next other top-traded issues were Beximco Limited, Titas Gas, Eastern Housing Ltd (EHL), LankaBangla Finance, Bextex, AB Bank and S Alam.
Savar Refractories was the top gainer posting a rise of 18.11 per cent without any fundamental reason.
However, the company reported that it made an after-tax profit of Tk 0.10 million (1.0 lakh) as per its un-audited half-yearly accounts as of December last.
Nitol Insurance, Social Investment Bank, IFIC Bank, NHFIL, One Bank, Dhaka Fisheries were the next other top gainers.
BLTC, a Z-category issue, was the biggest loser on the day with a fall of 13.15 per cent. The company reported that its production remained suspended since March, 2003 and failed to declare any dividend due to continuous loss.
However, most of the banks witnessed healthy gains. Among the biggest gainers were the Social Investment Bank with a rise of 9.8 per cent, IFIC Bank 9.3 per cent, One Bank 8.3 per cent, Standard Bank 6.9 per cent and First Security Bank 6.5 per cent.
Among the pharmaceutical companies, Square Pharma lost 0.1 per cent, Beximco Pharma 0.7 per cent, ACI 1.2 per cent while ACI Formulations gained 0.2 per cent.
In the fuel and power sector, Titas Gas lost 1.8 per cent, Power Grid 0.2 per cent and Summit Power 2.8 per cent while DESCO gained 0.1 pr cent.