DSEX dips below 4,600-pt once again

Babul Barman | Published: May 03, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Stocks witnessed drastic decline last week with sluggish trading as investors showed lack of confidence in local companies by selling off shares throughout the week.
The week featured four trading sessions as Thursday was public holiday on the occasion of May Day. The market closed lower in all four trading sessions.
Week-on-week, DSEX, the benchmark index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), came down below 4,600-point mark and ended the week at 4,566.86 points, losing 135.59 points or 2.88 per cent.
The other two indices also suffered heavily. The DS30, comprising blue chips, lost 48.27 points or 2.81 per cent to close at 1,671.93 points. The DSE Shariah Index went down by 22.04 points or 2.12 per cent to close at 1,018.20 points.
The port city bourse--the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE)--also went down sharply and its Selective Categories Index, CSCX, lost 313.51 points or 3.45 per cent to close the week at 8,771.04 points.
The total turnover value on the DSE came down to Tk 16.93 billion which was Tk 24.72 billion in the previous week as last week saw one less trading session instead of previous week's five.
The average daily turnover for the week stood at Tk 4.23 billion, registering a decline of 14.38 per cent over the previous week's average of Tk 4.94 billion.
"The market tumbled heavily last week as the investors showed lack of confidence in local companies by selling off massive positions and becoming bullish in multinational corporations," commented LankaBangla Securities in its weekly market analysis.
"The bearishness in the local companies was on the backdrop of textile companies' bad performance in January to March quarter and seven companies' declaration of earnings recommending no dividend, which is a record in recent times," said the stock broker.
Some of the overexposed banks trying to lower their capital market exposure after Bangladesh Bank's warning might also have impacted the market negatively, the stock broker added.
"Swift corporate declarations and quarterly earnings announcement prompted investors to move cautious during the week," commented IDLC Investments.
"Depressed earnings announcement started beating the market sentiment from the very beginning of the week, putting investors in a cautious mood," said the merchant bank.
"Having called for larger corrections, panic started and fuelled increased level of sale pressure. In the meantime, activity shrank a lot, putting average daily turnover at around Tk 4.23 billion level," said the merchant bank.
Maiden session of the week faced steep decline, dragging DSEX below 4,700 points as the investors observed apparent lack of market direction. Having a vacuum in demand side, depressed earnings kept investors in a watchful mood.
Panic started re-bound amid investment community and took a toll of 58 points in the second day of the week. Later part of the week was not different, keeping market scenario totally negative. The market managed to stay flat at the last session of the week amid revived turnover.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 301 issues traded during the week, 248 declined, 45 advanced and 8 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Among the major sectors, top gaining sectors of the week were miscellaneous 4.87 per cent, tannery 2.48 per cent, and cement 1.27 per cent respectively. Conversely, top losing sectors were IT sector 13.07 per cent, ceramic 8.26 per cent and textile 7.02 per cent respectively.
Fuel & power and pharmaceuticals remained in the centre of investors' attention last week, capturing 15 per cent and 13 per cent of total turnover, respectively.
A total of 42 listed companies made corporate declarations during the week.
The market capitalisation of the DSE went down by 1.64 per cent as it was Tk 3,002.35 billion on the opening day of the week and it stood at Tk 2,953.07 billion at closing session of the week.
Meghna Petroleum dominated the week's top turnover chart with shares worth Tk 901.35 million changing hands during the week followed by GP, Lafarge Surma Cement, Renata and Heidelberg Cement.
ACI Limited was the week's top gainer, posting a rise of 15.41 per cent following its corporate declaration of 85 per cent cash and 20 per cent stock dividend while Delta Spinners was the week's worst loser, slumping by 41.51 per cent following its price adjustment after record date in the week.