The bearish momentum extended for the second straight week in a row last week that ended Thursday as most of the investors were cautious amid lack of clear direction.
Analysts said the downturn lingered amid lack of optimistic economic outlook and vapid capital market investment insight while year-end and complexity regarding winding-up process of two big mutual funds -AIMS First and Grameen One, made investors more cautious.
The week featured four trading sessions instead of five as Wednesday was public holiday due to Victory Day. Of them, first three sessions closed lower while last one managed to edged up a bit.
Week-on-week, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 62.54 points or 1.36 per cent to settle the week at 4,520.88.
The two other indices also closed in the red zone. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, slipped 21.35 points or 1.23 per cent to finish at 1,719.74. The DSE Shariah Index lost 14.77 points or 1.34 per cent to close the week at 1,090.59.
The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed in the red with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX - shedding 105.89 points or 1.24 per cent to end at 8,399.16.
"The bearish momentum prolonged last week in the capital market as the broad index struggled to remain above 4,500 points 'psychological' level," said IDLC Investments, a merchant bank, in its weekly market analysis.
"Amid prolonged depression in the market, investors opted for capital protection strategy, by liquidating their holdings to avoid any further loss," said the merchant bank.
Moreover, portfolio adjustment strategy continued on both individual and institutional end, causing volatility among different cap classes, said the merchant bank.
The merchant bank noted that indecisive mindset amid lack of optimistic economic and capital market scenario fazed the investors, causing slumping market activities.
Trading activities remained sluggish and total turnover on the premier bourse came down to Tk 12.20 billion, which was 43.71 per cent lower than the previous week's total turnover of Tk 21.67 billion as the bourse witnessed one less trading session last week.
The daily turnover averaged Tk 3.05 billion, which was 29.64 per cent lower than the previous week's average of Tk 4.33 billion.
Overall activities remained confined on, engineering, pharma and power sectors, where they captured 20 per cent, 19 per cent, 15 per cent respectively of the week's total turnover.
"Investors continued to liquidate their holding to avoid further loss on investment amid jittery," said International Leasing Securities, a stockbroker, in an analysis.
Participation from the investors also plunged, as reflected by significant drop in the daily market turnover amidst 'watchfulness', the stockbroker said.
LankaBangla Securities, a stockbroker, said, "The selling pressure on large-cap stocks continued to batter market sentiment".
"Among the large-cap stocks, Lafarge Surma, Titas Gas, BATBC and ICB took a big hit, plunging 7.6 per cent, 7.3 per cent, 5.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively, which contributed to index fall," said the stockbroker.
All the cap classes ended in negative zone, with micro cap stocks and large cap stocks taking the major thrash, in face of increased supply of issues last week.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 326 traded issues, 231 closed lower, 68 higher and 27 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor last week.
The market capitalisation of the DSE went down by 1.35 per cent as it was Tk 3,147.38 billion on the opening day of the week and it stood at Tk 3,104.85 billion on closing day of the week.
Beximco Pharma dominated the week's turnover chart with shares of Tk 856 million changing hands during the week followed by Square Pharma (Tk 617 million), Quasem Drycells (Tk 592 million), newly listed Regent Textile (Tk 471 million) and Delta Life Insurance (Tk 361 million).
Quasem Drycells was the week's best performer, posting a rise of 20.44 per cent while BIFC was the week's worst loser, plunging by 18.69 per cent.
A new issue - Regent Textile-- made debut last week. However, the debutant could not attract the investors much and closed the week at Tk 21.1, losing 15.6 per cent lower than its offer price of Tk 25.
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