Dhaka stocks witnessed a mild correction on Sunday as risk-averse investors opted for booking profits on large-cap issues.
Brokers said some investors sold shares from telecommunication, banking and financial institutions sectors for booking profits, taking the market in the negative territory.
Accordingly, the financial institutions saw the highest loss of 1.14 per cent, followed by telecom with 0.95 per cent, banking 0.71 per cent and pharmaceuticals 0.12 per cent.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the DSE, settled at 5,410, losing 7.46 points or 0.13 per cent over the previous day.
"This downward shift in the index is mainly driven by significant negative changes in banking and telecommunication sectors," commented LankaBangla Securities.
Two other indices, however, finished marginally higher. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, advanced 3.88 points to finish at 1,902 and the DSE Shariah Index gained 6.41 points to close at 1,257.
The turnover, another important indicator of the market, has increased to Tk 8.44 billion on DSE which was 11 per cent higher than the previous session's Tk 7.60 billion.
The power sector dominated the turnover chart, grabbing 20 per cent of the day's total transaction, followed by engineering with 18 per cent and textile 17 per cent.
According to International Leasing Securities, the shaky investors sold shares from NBFI and banking issues riding on the news that the private sector credit growth hit 31-month low of 14.95 per cent in August as investors shy away from business expansion due to the upcoming national election.
A total number of 159,675 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 187 million securities.
The market capitalisation of the DSE stood at Tk 3,897 billion on Sunday which was Tk 3,895 billion in the previous session.
The power sector posted the highest gain of 2.24 per cent, followed by food with 1.12 per cent and engineering 0.60 per cent.
The losers took a modest lead over the gainers as out of 341 issues traded, 183 closed lower, 120 ended higher and 38 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Khulna Power Company topped the DSE turnover chart again with 7.21 million shares worth Tk 985 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were United Power, BBS Cables, Active Fine Chemicals and Singer Bangladesh.
ML Dyeing was the day's best performer, posting a gain of 9.95 per cent while Meghna Cement was the worst loser, losing 8.87 per cent.
However, the port city's bourse, the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), closed higher with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -advancing 35 points to settle at 16,695 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -gaining 21 points to finish at 10,112.
The losers beat gainers as 124 issues closed lower, 105 ended higher and 21 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 9.88 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 311 million in turnover.
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