Stocks edged higher Tuesday, snapping the substantial losses in the past seven days, supported by large-cap stocks.
Dealers said the market backed to green as some investors took position in fundamentally strong issues like Grameenphone (GP) and Square Pharmaceuticals which helped the index edge higher.
GP, the largest market-cap listed company's share price surged 0.51 per cent to close at Tk 474.70. Share prices of the second largest market-cap Square Pharmaceuticals also jumped 1.88 per cent to close at Tk 314.70 after facing major correction in recent days.
"Latest development regarding major bourse's share sales to the Chinese consortium might have played a positive role to jack the market up," said an analyst at a leading brokerage firm, seeking anonymity.
After holding a meeting with securities' regulator, the premier bourse said Monday at a press briefing that the regulator is evaluating only the Chinese investment proposal.
However, liquidity crisis persisted in the market as the institutional investors mostly refrained from injecting fresh funds into the market, taking the turnover to Tk 3.22 billion, which was 8.26 per cent lower over the previous day.
"The institutional investors could not support the market more because of the liquidity crisis though the central bank has extended the deadline for lowering the loan-deposit ratio," said the analyst.
The market opened on positive note and the key index of the major bourse gained nearly 60 points within first hour of trading, but rest of the session eroded most of the early gains.
Finally it ended more than 23 points higher.
DSEX, prime index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,798, advancing 23.85 points or 0.41 per cent after losing 328 points in the past seven sessions.
Two other indices of the premier bourse also ended higher. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, advanced 14 points or 0.66 per cent to finish at 2,141 and DSES (Shariah) index gained 7.48 points or 0.55 per cent to close at 1,256.
According to EBL Securities, the capital market broke seven days downward trend as investors' buying binge was visible on stocks, majority from pharmaceuticals telecommunication and banking sector issues.
"However, the turnover further dipped to Tk 3.22 billion as market participants remained frustrated under the prevailing situation," said the stockbroker.
Among the major sectors, pharmaceuticals posted the highest gain of 1.0 per cent followed by telecommunication 0.50 per cent, engineering 0.20 per cent, banking 0.20 per cent and non-bank financial institutions 0.10 per cent.
Fuel & power and food & allied sectors lost 0.50 per cent and 0.10 per cent respectively.
The gainers took a modest lead over the losers as out of 334 issues traded, 168 closed higher, 106 closed lower and 60 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
A total number of 78,999 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 80.29 million securities
The market capilatisation of DSE stood at Tk 4,028 billion which was Tk 4,020 billion in the previous session.
Olympic Industries continued to top the DSE turnover chart with shares worth Tk 175 million changing hands, closely followed by Grameephone, Square Pharmaceuticals, Unique Hotel & Resorts, Al-Arafah Islami Bank.
United Insurance was the day's best performer, posting a gain of 6.37 per cent while Berger Paints was the worst loser, shedding 4.56 per cent.
Port city bourse CSE also returned to higher with its CSE All Share Price Index - CAPSI- advancing 93 points to settle at 17,943 and selective Categories Index - CSCX - gaining 56 points to finish at 10,829.
Here too, the gainers beat the losers as 112 issues closed higher, 67 lower and 28 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 5.10 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 154 million in turnover.
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