DSEX remains steady

The stock market witnessed a flat session Tuesday with turnover declined slightly as most of the investors went for late hour profit booking following recent bullish trend.
The market started with a positive note, gaining 36 points within the first 35 minutes of trade, but most of early gains wiped out as session progressed amid choppy trading.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) ended at 4,472.17 points, gaining only 5.17 points or 0.11 per cent.
However, the other two indices closed in the red. The DS30, comprising blue chips lost 4.39 points or 0.26 per cent to close at 1,650.59 points. The DSE Shariah Index declined 1.80 points or 0.17 per cent to close at 1,020.67 points.
The continued watchful tendency pressed down market activity. The total turnover on DSE stood at Tk 4.98 billion which was 12.24 per cent lower over the previous session's 3-month high turnover of Tk 5.60 billion.
 "The market witnessed a flat session as most of the investors went for profit booking attitude after the recent bullish trend in the overall market," commented International Leasing Securities.
The price appreciation among most of the small caps issues was neutralised by a slight decline among few large cap issues, it said.
 "Instead of focusing on any particular sector, investors were attached to selected individual scrips among various sectors," said the International Leasing.
 "The day's bullish beginning couldn't sustain ahead of profit booking in large cap stocks. Eventually, remaining meticulous, investors were searching for investment worthy spread in mini and small caps," said IDLC Investments.
LankaBangla Securities, said: "After failing to sustain an initial upward move, stocks have fluctuated over the course of the trading day. The choppy trading comes on the heels of the profit booking that was observed throughout the day".
Buying interest was mostly generated by the news that net profit of nearly 80 per cent of the listed private banks have increased in the first half of this year due mainly to higher income from treasury bonds and improved import situation, said the stock broker.
Sectoral performance was mixed. Among the major sectors, banks appreciated by only 0.36 per cent. Food and allied and telecommunication also went up by 0.18 per cent and 0.10 per cent respectively.
Fuel and power declined by 0.81 per cent. NBFIs and pharmaceuticals lost 0.32 per cent and 0.21 per cent respectively.
The gainers took a lead over the losers as out of 300 issues traded, 174 advanced, 87 declined and 39 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Activities mixed in the major bourse (DSE) where trade was down by 4.27 per cent, but volume was up 4.98 per cent respectively. A total of 0.113 million trades were executed with 121.69 million securities of trading volume.
The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed marginally higher with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX - gained 30.17 points to close at 8,481.93 points.
Gainers beat losers 125 to 67, with 27 issues remaining unchanged at the port city bourse that traded 11.06 million shares and mutual fund units, turnover value of Tk 366.02 million.