FE Report
Stocks declined sharply in choppy trading Tuesday as fear of political turmoil which triggered such kind of straight downbeat amid first day of nationwide 48-hour blockade enforced by opposition parties.
The market started with a positive note, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange -DSEX- reaching 4,370 points level during first hour of trading, but latter could not sustain the pace and ended at 4,277.54 points, shedding 77.33 points or 1.77 per cent.
The DS30 index, including blue chips also went down by 26.96 points or 1.56 per cent to close the session at 1,508.30 points.
The total turnover at the bourse stood at Tk 26 billion, which was 3.3 per cent lower over previous day's turnover value, indicating sellers are not aggressively selling off their holdings yet.
"As clock starts ticking for upcoming election, turbulent political frontier once again took hold of investors' perception, depressing market sentiment," said IDLC Investments, a leading investments banker.
Due to fear driven pressure, DSEX corrected 77 points while, turnover remained encouraging as contrarian investors pumped up activities, said the merchant bank.
Consistent with previous sessions, investors' favored basket of stocks remained mostly unchanged, with textile leading in turnover accompanied by pharmaceuticals, accounted for 25 per cent and 14 per cent of total market turnover respectively, the merchant bank.
"Fear among investors during the first day of nationwide blockade pulled market down, eroding 77.34 points," said LankaBangla Securities, a leading stock broker.
"After ending the last day's session notably higher, the market came under pressure on the heels of the political instability," said Zenith Investments.
Buying enthusiasm has remained somewhat subdued whereas sellers took some profits off the table, limiting the growing trend of the index, said the investments banker.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 290 issues traded, 209 declined, 60 advanced and 21 remained unchanged on the primer bourse.
All the sectors ended in red except a few small cap sectors including ceramics and tannery, gaining1.17 per cent and 0.03 per cent respectively. Two ceramic stocks - Fu-Wang Ceramics and Shinepukur Ceramics were also featured in the top ten gainers chart.
Banks, the largest sector of the market, registered the highest loss of 2.32 per cent - closely followed by fuel & power which retraced 2.05 per cent. The other major sectors - NBFIs and telecommunications lost 1.71 per cent and 1.32 per cent respectively. Pharmaceuticals closed flat.
Orion Pharma and Central Pharma which were in the top ten gainers list for Tuesday have largely contributed to raise the whole pharmaceutical & chemical sector as Central Pharma will be placed in 'A' category from existing 'N' category with effect from today (Wednesday).
Activities also increased on the prime bourse. A total of 0.165 million trades were executed with 184.28 million shares and mutual fund units were trading volume.
The market capitalization of the DSE stood at Tk 2,650.44 billion against Tk 2,685.41 billion in the previous session.
Orion Pharma was the most traded stocks with shares worth Tk 336.13 million changing hands followed by RN Spinning, Generation Next Fashion, Paramount Textile and Summit Purbanchol Power.
Fu-Wang Ceramic was day's highest gainer, posting a rise of 9.74 per cent while Samorita Hospital was the day's worst losers, slumping by 20.06 per cent following its price adjustment after record date.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also declined steeply, with its Selective Categories Index lost 130.14 points to close at 8,419.65 points.
Losers beat gainers 169 to 39, with 13 issues remaining unchanged at the port city bourse that traded 23.94 million shares and mutual fund units, turnover value of Tk 806.07 million.
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