Stocks slide for fifth day

Stock extended their losing streak for the five straight sessions Wednesday as investors’ selling spree continued amid prolonged political gridlock.
"Lack of investors' confidence coupled with more than two and a half months long political instability with no sign of ending, drive away investors from the market," said an analyst.
The market opened with a negative note, following a downtrend till mid-session and eventually closing in red losing 35.18 points. DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) ended at 4,442.81 points, shedding 35.18 points or 0.78 per cent.
DSEX slumped 206.49 points or 4.44 per cent in the past five consecutive sessions.
The two others indices also saw sharp decline. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips shed 16.39 points or 0.96 per cent to close at 1,675.11 points. The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) shed 16.38 points or 1.50 per cent to close at 1,074.60 points.
However, strong selling pressure helped turnover to cross Tk 3.0 billion-mark again and amounted to Tk 3.13 billion, registering an increase of 8.30 per cent over the previous session's value of Tk 2.89 billion.
The investors' attention was mostly focused on food, cement and pharma - the sectors that accounted for 16.2 per cent, 13.4 per cent and 12.9 per cent of the day's total turnover respectively.
"The bearish spell stretched for the five consecutive sessions amidst the declining confidence from the investors," said International Leasing Securities in an analysis.
The free-fall in beginning dipped the DSEX below 4,400-mark during the session, however, investors' move to take position, in several stocks of banks and financial stocks in the later part salvaged the bourse from major setback, it said.
LankaBangla Securities: "Market is going sideways to down in the near-term. The market is still under pressure as the DSEX is struggling below 4,500-mark".
Meanwhile, concern over the political impasses kept the market sentiment in check at local manufacturing firms ahead of corporate declaration, said the stock broker.
However, few banks treated the buying appetite of investors in last hours covering some losses of early morning, the stock broker added.
IDLC Investments said: "Initially battered down market recovered somewhat during the later hours, ending the day with a not so deep bourse".
The financial sectors turned around with banks and NBFIs gaining 0.11 per cent and 0.13 per cent respectively. Power ended flat in green with 0.02 per cent gain.
As of the other large-cap sectors, cement incurred a heavy correction of 5.37 per cent as heavyweight Lafarge Surma Cement slumped 7.2 per cent as the proposed merger between global Holcim and Lafarge hit debacle.  
Food and allied and telecommunication also experienced noteworthy loses of 1.41 per cent and 1.12 per cent respectively. The pharmaceutical sector also ended in red going down by 0.47 per cent.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 307 issues traded, 161 declined and 104 advanced while 42 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Activities mixed in the major bourse where volume was up by 2.62 per cent, but trade was down by 13.15 per cent. A total number of 0.072 million trades were executed with trading volume of 62.89 million securities.
The market capitalisation on DSE stood at Tk 3,100.62 billion against Tk 3,123.30 billion in the previous session.
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