Stocks dropped slightly on Monday, with turnover hitting three and a half months low on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), as investors mostly followed cautious stance amid a volatile market trend.
Turnover came down to Tk 12.75 billion on the country's premier bourse, in a further decline by 22 per cent over the previous day's tally of Tk 16.37 billion.
It was the lowest single-day transaction since July 19 this year, when turnover was recorded at Tk 12.64 billion.
Following the previous day's steep fall, the market moved between positive and negative several times before falling below 7,000-mark further after four trading days.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the DSE, went down 2.90 points or 0.04 per cent to settle at 6,998, after shedding more than 61 points in the previous day.
However, two other indices edged up with the DSE 30 Index, comprising blue chips, gaining 5.10 points to finish at 2,625 and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) advanced 3.96 points to close at 1,474.
Market experts said institutional investors trimmed their positions while the retail investors closely observed the market movement before making further investment in stocks.
Stock investors' participation has been decreasing in the last few days as the small investors became cautious and analysing the latest earnings and dividend declarations, said a merchant banker.
"The retail investors mostly followed 'go-slow' strategy while some rebalanced their portfolio based on latest corporate declarations, which created choppy trading during the session," he said.
According to International Leasing Securities, a group of investors showed buying interest in lucrative stocks with good earnings while another group made profit booking sell-offs, taking the market index almost flat.
Cautious investors outperformed the bargain hunters as the profit booking temperament on sector-specific stocks took the market index to close nearly flat, it said.
Media reports that banks will come under a liquidity crunch within three to six months due to an escalation of import financing and a rising demand for loans from businesses as the economy returns to normalcy, also made investors cautious, said a leading broker.
Some banks are already feeling the pinch of the liquidity shortage, he said, quoting media reports.
Major sectors saw mixed performances with financial institutions witnessing the highest correction of 2.0 per cent, followed by cement with 1.30 per cent, telecom 1.20 per cent and banking 0.70 per cent.
On the other hand, food, engineering, textile, general insurance, and pharma sectors posted gains of 1.0 per cent, 0.90 per cent, 0.90 per cent, 0.80 per cent and 0.70 per cent respectively.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 376 issues traded, 205 ended lower, 133 closed higher and 38 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Beximco was the most traded stock with shares worth Tk 1.28 billion changing hands, followed by Fortune Shoes (Tk 598 million), IFIC Bank (Tk 584 million), Orion Pharma (Tk 489 million) and Delta Life Insurance (Tk 471 million).
Mozaffar Hossain Spinning Mills was the day's top gainer, rising 9.71 per cent while Midas Financing was the worst lower, losing 8.37 per cent.
A total number of 195,639 trades were executed in the day's trading session with a trading volume of 291.27 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of DSE stood at Tk 5,590 billion on Monday, down slightly from Tk 5,595 billion in the previous session.
However, the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), ended marginally higher with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -gaining 58 points to settle at 20,539 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX-- advancing 34 points to close at 12,340.
Of the issues traded, 136 declined, 128 advanced and 24 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port-city bourse traded 13.28 million shares and mutual fund units with a turnover value of Tk 431 million.
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