Stocks drift lower amid poor turnover

FE Report
Stocks finished lower Wednesday, snapping the previous day's positive trend, as investors mostly followed cautious stance ahead of earnings and dividend declarations.
Market operators said the small investors went for booking profits while the institutional investors could not support the market due to ongoing liquidity crisis, taking the market in the downward trend.
"Ambiguity over the Dhaka bourse's share sales to strategic partner and concerns over the ongoing liquidity crunch contributed to the fall in indices," said an analyst at a leading brokerage firm.
He noted that selling of shares mostly from banking and food & allied sectors contributed to the fall in indices although the bargain hunters took position on telecom issues.
Following the previous day's positive movement, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) opened on positive.
Within 30 minutes of trading, the DSEX added more than 14 points while the CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) of port city's bourse rose 36 points at 11:00am.
After that it started to decline as cautious investors went on selling spree. Finally the core index fell more than 25 points while the CSE All Share Price Index lost 56 points at closing.
DSEX, the benchmark index of the prime bourse, settled at 5,822, losing 25.62 points or 0.43 per cent over the previous session.
"Though the market opened on positive vibe, selling pressure from the investors led the index in downward in later part of the session," commented International Leasing Securities, in an analysis.
The stockbroker noted that the shaky investors booked profit on food, bank, cement and ceramic sectors stocks whereas optimistic investors took position on textile, telecom and mutual fund sector stocks.
The two other indices also ended marginally lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 12.23 points or 0.56 per cent to finish at 2,143. The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) lost 1.84 points or 0.13 per cent to close at 1,373.
The market activities also fell and the total turnover on the DSE amounting to Tk 4.05 billion, which was 5.18 per cent lower than the previous day's Tk 4.26 billion.
"Total turnover decreased as most of the investors followed "go-slow" strategy in recent downbeat trend," the stockbroker said.
The engineering sector dominated the turnover chart, capturing 19 per cent of the day's total transactions, followed by banking with 16 per cent and textile 14 per cent.
The large-cap sectors showed negative performance except telecommunication 0.28 per cent.
Food & allied experienced the highest loss of 1.06 per cent, followed by banking 1.05 per cent, financial institutions 0.11 per cent, engineering 0,.11 power 0.10 per cent and pharmaceuticals 0.05 per cent.
Out of 335 issues traded, 175 closed lower, 115 nudged higher and 45 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Brac Bank topped the day's turnover chart with shares worth Tk 129 changing hands, closely followed by Al-Arafah Islami Bank, Monno Ceramic Industries, Beximco Pharmaceuticals and Mercantile Bank.
Ten top loser's and gainer's list were mostly dominated by the small cap stocks with Peninsula Chittagong was the day's best performer, posting a gain of 9.56 per cent while Prime Insurance Company was the day's worst loser, shedding 9.50 per cent.
Port city bourse CSE also slipped into the red with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -losing 73 points to settle at 17,993 and selective Categories Index - CSCX -shedding 45 points to finish at 10,862 points.
The losers beat the gainers as 108 issues closed higher, 82 dipped and 35 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 8.07 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 335 million in turnover.
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