After steep fall in the previous session, stocks ended slightly lower Wednesday with sluggish turnover as investors kept their cautiousness intact.
Market insiders said that despite the market ended nearly flat, most of the investors were inactive and remained on the sidelines to safeguard their position amid ongoing bearish market.
Following the previous two days' sharp decline, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) opened on a positive note.
After witnessing volatility almost throughout the session, DSE key index fell 2.92 points while CSE All Share Price Index lost 4.88 points at closing.
DSEX, the benchmark index of the DSE, went down by 2.92 points or 0.05 per cent to settle at more than nine months low at 5,489. It was also the lowest level of DSEX since June 19, 2017.
According to International Leasing Securities, the market witnessed a mild correction as the risk-averse investors continued their selling spree, while some adopted 'wait-and-see' stance amid ongoing wary market trend.
The stockbroker noted that the market started on optimistic tune, but the profit booking tendency of risk-averse investors in telecom, pharmaceutical and engineering sectors pushed down the market though there were some attempts of intraday reversal.
"The optimistic investors took position on the lucrative price levels, especially in food, bank and textile stocks," said the stockbroker.
The two other indices of the premier bourse also ended in the red. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 1.40 points to finish at 2,055 and DSES (Shariah) index lost 6.0 points to settle at 1,297.
Bearish sentiment also reflected on the trading activities as the total turnover on the major bourse amounting to Tk 2.77 billion, which was 11 per cent lower than the previous day's turnover of Tk 3.11 billion.
Index started rising at the beginning of third hour but the momentum could not sustain.
All major sectors, except bank and non-bank financial institutions, posted negative movements which gained 0.82 per cent and 0.14 per cent respectively.
Telecommunication witnessed the highest loss of 1.18 per cent, followed by pharmaceuticals 0.83 per cent, engineering 0.68 per cent, power 0.27 per cent and food & allied 0.21 per cent.
A total number of 69,725 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 84.63 million securities.
The market cap of DSE also came down to Tk 3,872 billion which was Tk 3,882 billion in the previous day.
The losers took a modest lead over the gainers as out of 337 issues traded, 160 closed lower, 117 ended higher and 60 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Renata, a pharmaceuticals company, topped the day's turnover chart with shares worth nearly Tk 172 million changing hands, closely followed by Square Pharmaceuticals, BRAC Bank, Grameenphone and Salvo Chemical Industries.
FAS Finance & Investment was also the day's highest gainer, posting a gain of 9.48 per cent following its 10 per cent stock dividend declaration news while BD Finance was the day's worst loser, losing 7.42 per cent.
Port city bourse CSE also ended slightly lower with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - shedding 4.88 points to settle at 16,941 points and Selective Categories Index - CSCX - losing 2.06 points to finish at 10,236 points.
Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 104 issues closed lower, 82 ended higher and 34 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 4.69 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 104 million in turnover.
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