Stocks fell further on Thursday with key index of the prime bourse hitting five months low to 4,416.95 points as investors went for selling spree fearing further fall.
"Investment-hostile economic and political state of the country strangled movements in the capital market, forcing investors to rethink their exposure," said an analyst.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) went down by 40.53 points or 0.90 per cent to close at 4,416.95 points, hitting five months low level since January 9, 2014.
The other two indices saw sharp decline. The DS30, comprising blue chips lost 18.19 points or 1.12 per cent to close at 1,604.39 points. The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) also dropped 11.87 points or 1.19 per cent to close at 984.84 points.
The investors restrained themselves from active participation resulting turnover dropped to Tk 3.05 billion, registering a decline of 19.31 per cent over the previous session's value of Tk 3.78 billion.
"Benchmark index fell by 0.91 per cent on the closing day of the week as concern over week corporate and quarterly earnings kept investors edgy," commented LankaBangla Securities, in its regular market analysis.
Throughout the week quarterly declaration of multinational companies and financial stock were in negative biased with loss in Q1 2014 earnings, said the stock broker.
Throughout the week market continued to show range-bound move, since the index breached its support level of 4,500 as limit on bank's exposure in the capital market instilled bearish tone in market sentiment, said the stock broker.
"Market appears to be hitting a wall as index stumbled on the five months' low," said the stock broker.
On the regulatory front, The High Court (HC) in a judgment Wednesday declared 'illegal' the much-talked-about securities regulators' notification on mandatory holding of 2.0 per cent shares by each of the sponsor-director of the listed companies. However, Appellate Division Thursday stayed the order till May 22.
"The country's stock market prolonged its bearish spell. In the last five sessions DSEX lost 158.55 points. Large cap scrips like GP, Square Pharma, BATBC and Lafarge Surma Cement suffered big losses" said International Leasing Securities.
"Market lost significant ground in the day's session, amid sharp, 19 per cent decline in turnover to Tk 3.05 billion," said IDLC Investments.
Downbeat sentiment was prevalent from the beginning of the session, correcting DSEX to below 4,400 level. Soon after, selective buy pressure entered to exploit resultant lucrative pricing, said the merchant bank.
However, the pressure was not strong enough to put market in green and settled for 4,416.96 points, finally, the merchant bank added.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 282 issues traded, 177 declined, 76 advanced and 29 issues closed unchanged on the DSE floor.
All the major sectors closed in red. Food & allied lost the most with 2.34 per cent decline. It was followed by pharmaceuticals and fuel & power which closed 1.95 per cent and 1.38 per cent lower respectively.
NBFIs lost 1.37 per cent and telecommunications lost 1.02 per cent. Bank closed flat in red.
Activities decreased in the major bourse (DSE) where volume and trade were down by 16.99 per cent and 17.74 per cent respectively. A total number of 0.077 million trades were executed in day's trading session with 78.49 million securities of trading volume.
The total market capitalisation on the DSE stood at Tk 2,874.15 billion against Tk 2,899.77 billion in the previous trading session.
Square Pharma became the top turnover leader with shares worth Tk 169.35 million changing hands followed by GP, Lafarge Surma Cement, Meghna Petroleum and Hwa Well Textiles.
Wata Chemicals which backed to main market was the day's highest gainer; posting a rise of 9.89 per cent while MBL First Mutual Fund was the day's worst losers, slumping by 22.35 per cent.
The port city bourse -- Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also saw sharp fall with its Selective Categories Index -- CSCX lost 60.50 points to stand at 8,508.84 points.
Losers beat gainers 141 to 44, with 26 issues remaining unchanged at the port city bourse that traded 7.10 million shares and mutual fund units, turnover value of Tk 243.53 million.
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