Prolonged political turmoil keeps investors at bay

Babul Barman | Published: February 07, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Stocks extended their losing streak for the fourth week in a row amid volatility as investors' confidence remained shaky amid lingering political strife.
The week featured five trading sessions as usual. Of them, prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) slumped 105.61 points in the first two sessions while last three sessions recovered 66.6 points.
Week-on-week, DSEX, the prime index of the DSE came down below the 4,700-mark and ended the week at 4,685.04 points, shedding 39.01 points or 0.83 per cent.
The two other indices also ended in red. The DS30, comprising blue chips index moved down by 4.53 points or 0.83 per cent to close at 1,733.22 points. The DSE Shariah Index dropped 5.48 points or 0.49 per cent to close at 1,110.21 points.
The port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed lower last week with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX - lost 28.7 points or 0.32 per cent to close the week at 8,707.33 points.
Gloomy political frontier kept investors at bay and the total turnover for the week amounted to Tk 10.71 billion against Tk 10.85 billion in the week before.
The daily turnover for the week averaged Tk 2.14 billion, registering a decline of 1.27 per cent over the previous week's average of Tk 2.17 billion.
Engineering sector emerged as the most active sector last week, capturing 16.61 per cent of the week's total turnover thanks to the newly listed IFAD Autos followed by power sector 17.61 per cent and textiles sector 10.88 per cent.
"The lingering political unrest in the country hit investors' confidence, as a result market remained in bearish mood," said a stock broker.
However, lucrative prices at some fundamentally strong stocks created slight level of buy pressure at the later part of the week, said the stock broker.
IDLC Investments said: "The down trend extended to another week of correction amid slow activities".
Though, market faced a few positive sessions, resulted by actions of the bargain hunters, it was insufficient recover from the early in the week correction, said the merchant banker.
"Continuous blockade with political uncertainty reached one month, affecting investors' sentiment seriously," the merchant bank added.
"Quarterly earnings declarations of some companies for the Oct'14-Dec'14 period sent mixed signals to investors," said LankaBangla Securities in its weekly analysis.
Few FMCG, pharma, IT and power companies reported extraordinary earnings growth during the quarter which started to allure investors from sideline despite turbulence in political front, the stock broker said.
After previous week's steep correction in telecommunication, the sector led in gain last week, advancing 2.8 per cent. Pharmaceuticals and NBFIs went up by 0.54 per cent and 0.45 per cent respectively.
Cement witnessed hefty loss of 3.47 per cent. Power also went down steeply by 2.06 per cent. Food and allied sector lost 0.61 per cent and banks retraced by 0.17 per cent. Â
The losers took a lead over the gainers as out of 319 issues traded, 204 declined, 94 advanced and 21 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Only one listed company -- RAK Ceramics declared divided last week. The company declared 25 per cent cash dividend for the year ended on December 31, 2014.
The market capitalisation of the DSE went down slightly by 0.02 per cent as it was Tk 3,177.70 billion on the opening day of the week and it stood at Tk 3,177.21 billion on closing day of the week.
Newly listed IFAD Autos dominated the week's top turnover chart with shares worth Tk 740.09 million changing hands followed by GP, Lafarge Surma Cement, C&A Textiles and Aamra Technologies.
International Leasing & Financial Services was the week's top gainer, posting a rise of 11.20 per cent while Shahjibazar Power was the week's worst loser, plunging by 20.99 per cent.
A new issue - IFAD Autos, made debut at the last trading session of the week. Each share of the company closed at Tk 67.7 on the DSE, registering an increase of 126 per cent from the offer price of Tk 30.
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