Stocks end flat amid bumpy ride on DSE

Stocks ended flat on Wednesday amid volatile trading as the investors were active both sides of trading fence ahead of Eid festival.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,187, inching down by 0.09 point over the previous day.
Market analysts said some investors were active on financial stocks while some were busy with rebalancing their portfolio based on earnings declarations, taking the market in flat zone.
Today (Thursday) is the last trading day before nine-day Eid holidays as bourses will remain closed from August 9 to August 17, including weekly holidays, on the occasion of Eid-ul-Azha.
Meanwhile, the DSE has extended the suspension period of trading of shares of the People's Leasing and Financial Services for further period of 15 days from August 13, 2019 as per the regulation, according to a DSE statement.
On July 14, the bourses suspended trading of shares of the company until getting confirmation from Bangladesh Bank on liquidation of the company.
Recently, the government has directed the central bank to liquidate People's Leasing, due to deterioration of its financial health in the last several years.
Liquidation of PLFS means closing its operations permanently and the government will take actions to settle liabilities by selling off its assets.
The market opened on positive note and the key index crossed the 5,200-mark in the mid-session. But later part of the session eroded all the early gains.
The DSES (Shariah) index also fell 4.37 points to settle at 1,189. However, the DS30 index, comprising blue chips, advanced 4.37 points to finish at 1,836.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, stood at Tk 4.63 billion, which was 21 per cent lower than the previous day's turnover of Tk 5.68 billion.
The tussle between BTRC and Grammenphone continues which led investors to execute sell-off on GP shares, commented UCB Capital.
EBL Securities said lower than expected dividend declaration of the mutual funds might have failed to meet the investors' expectation.
However, investors exerted selling pressure on sector specific stocks especially from engineering, food and textile sectors, said the stockbroker.
The port city bourse, the Chittagong Stock Exchange, also finished lower with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - losing 21 points to settle at 15,852 while the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -shedding 12 points to finish at 9,633.
Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 154 issues ended lower, 72 closed higher and 25 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 7.44 million shares and mutual fund units worth nearly Tk 229 million in turnover.

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