Stocks ended almost flat amid volatile trading on Tuesday as investors booked profits with cautious positioning.
Analysts said most of the investors followed 'wait-and-see' approach ahead of Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission's Silver Jubilee programme.
The securities regulator planned to celebrate the occasion through organising weeklong programmes starting today (Wednesday).
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate the event at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital on the day.
Meanwhile, the management of both the Dhaka and Chittagong stock exchanges decided to extend trading hours by 30 minutes only for today (Wednesday) due to the inaugural ceremony.
The trading will open at 10:30 am and continue till 3:00 pm on the day. The regular trading hours from 10:30 am to 2:30 pm will be reverted from tomorrow (Thursday).
A director of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) said members of the bourse are invited to the inaugural session of the silver jubilee programme.
So, the management of the DSE extended the trading hours by 30 minutes in light of the Rule 4 of Dhaka Stock Exchange Automated Trading Regulations, 1999.
On Tuesday, the market opened on positive note and the key index of the major bourse gained about 27 points at 12:50pm. But rest of the session eroded almost all the early gains.
Finally, DSEX, the prime index of the DSE, went up by 3.82 points or 0.06 per cent to settle at 5,543, after losing 34 points in the past two consecutive sessions.
"The upward shift in the index is mainly driven by positive changes in the large-cap sectors like banking, financial institutions and telecommunication," commented LankaBangla Securities.
According to International Leasing Securities, the active presence of bargain hunters on financial institutions, banking and telecom sectors' stocks helped the bourse to back in green.
Accordingly, financial institutions posted the highest gain of 0.63 per cent, followed by banking with 0.60 per cent and telecom 0.56 per cent.
However, two other indices stayed in the red territory. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.63 points to finish at 1,938 and the DSE Shariah Index saw a fractional loss of 0.56 point to close at 1,271.
Turnover, the most important indicator of the market, dipped below Tk 8.0 billion-mark to Tk 7.14 billion, which was 26 per cent lower than the previous session's Tk 9.65 billion.
Among other major sectors, power witnessed the highest loss of 0.70 per cent, followed by engineering with 0.57 per cent and pharmaceuticals 0.21 per cent.
Of the 335 issues traded, 152 declined, 131 advanced and 52 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
A total number of 132,663 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 164.67 million securities.
The market capitalisation of the DSE stood at Tk 3,953 billion on the day which was Tk 3,951 billion in the previous session.
Khulna Power Company topped the turnover chart again with 5.78 million shares worth Tk 608 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were Active Fine Chemicals, BBS Cables, IFAD Autos and Confidence Cement.
National Life Insurance was the best performer for the second day in a row, posting a gain of 10 per cent while IFIL Islamic Mutual Fund-1 was the worst loser, losing 10 per cent.
However, the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) edged lower with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - losing 1.78 points to settle at 17,095 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -shedding 1.39 points to finish at 10,361.
The losers beat gainers as 128 issues closed lower, 82 ended higher and 30 issues remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city's bourse traded 9.92 million shares and mutual fund units worth Tk 448 million in turnover.
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