Stocks edge up riding on bank, power shares

The daily trade turnover on the prime bourse fell below Tk 6.0 billion-mark again on Tuesday, hitting more than two months low, as investors were reluctant to make fresh investment in stocks.
Turnover, an important indicator of the market, stood at Tk 5.75 billion on the country's premier bourse, slumping by nearly 16 per cent over previous day's mark of Tk 6.82 billion.
It was the lowest single-day transactions since January 01, 2019, when the turnover was Tk 5.30 billion.
Market analysts said most of the investors followed 'wait-and-see' strategy ahead of earnings and dividend declaration of financial sectors, taking the market turnover to two months low.
The market started on positive note and the key index rose about 27 points within first hour of trading. But, the most of the early gains wiped out as cautious investors went on selling shares.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,687, advancing only 5.07 points or 0.08 per cent over the previous day.
According to EBL Securities, increase of net foreign fund in stocks pulled back expectation about better market performance in days ahead and allured investors to take position on banking and power sector issues.
The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, also edged up 4.20 points to finish at 1995 points. However, the DSES (Shariah) index lost 5.0 points to settle at 1,304.
A total number of 127,976 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 120.09 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of the DSE increased to Tk 4,137 billion, from Tk 4,133 billion in the previous day.
International Leasing Securities said the bargain hunters took position on the lucrative price level in bank and power stocks in the final hour which helped the benchmark index to close in green.
Food and allied sector posted the highest loss of 1.41 per cent, followed by telecommunication with 0.64 per cent, non-bank financial institutions 0.47 per cent, pharmaceuticals 0.29 per cent and engineering 0.05 per cent.
On the other hand banking posted the highest gain of 1.97 per cent as prices of 25 banks closed higher, out of 30. Four banks featured in the day's top 10 gainers' chart with Dutch-Bangla Bangla was the highest gainer with 9.97 per cent gain.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers, as out of 345 issues traded, 191 closed lower, 109 ended higher and 45 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Top ten traded companies grabbed more than 41 per cent of the day's total turnover with Monno Ceramic Industries topped the day's turnover list with shares worth Tk 396 million changing hands, closely followed by United Power (Tk 341 million), Premier Bank (Tk 300 million), Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company (Tk 233 million) and National Polymer (Tk 221 million).

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