Stocks ended marginally higher for the second straight week that ended on Thursday as enthusiastic investors continued their buying interest on selective large-cap issues.
The market witnessed high volatility during the week as investors were active on both sides of the trading fence amid ongoing dividend declarations by the December year-end companies.
Week-on-week, the DSEX, the benchmark index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went up by 53.07 points or 0.96 per cent to settle at 5,568.
DSEX recovered more than 152 points in the past two consecutive weeks after wiping out more than 493 points in the six weeks in a row.
Market analysts said investors continued their appetite on selective large-cap stocks, particularly in Grameenphone, Walton, Berger Paints, Dutch-Bangla Bank, LankaBangla Finance, keeping the market afloat.
The market rally came on the back of positive macroeconomic indicators in the country like remittance, foreign reserve coupled with satisfactory dividend declarations of some companies during the week, said a merchant banker.
The remittance increased 33.51 per cent year-on-year in the first eight months of this fiscal year, foreign exchange reserve surpassed the $44 billion mark and the capital base of the country's banks improved marginally in 2020.
The news that DSE and merchant bankers demanded continuation of the facility of allowing investment of undisclosed money in the stock market for one more year to inject new funds into the market, also prompted investors, said the merchant banker.
According to International Leasing Securities, the investors' enthusiasm sustained riding on the news of Wall Street Journal that Bangladesh is becoming South Asia's 'economic bull case' as its exports have boomed over the past decade.
The stockbroker noted that the optimistic participation in cement, power, food, financial institution, telecom and engineering sectors helped the benchmark index to remain in green.
Two other indices also ended higher with the DS30 index, comprising blue chips, surged 41.99 points to finish at 2,154 and the DSE Shariah Index rose 17.17 points to close at Tk 1,265.
The week's total turnover on the prime bourse also jumped to Tk 43.30 billion which was Tk 35.95 billion in the week before.
The daily turnover averaged out at Tk 8.66 billion, which was 20.44 per cent higher than the previous week's average of Tk 7.19 billion.
Major sectors saw price appreciation with cement posted the highest gain of 8.0 per cent, followed by miscellaneous with 7.7 per cent, engineering 6.1 per cent, power 3.7 per cent, food 2.8 per cent, telecom 1.6 per cent and banking 0.4 per cent.
Losers, however, took a modest lead over the gainers as out of 367 issues traded, 166 declined, 113 advanced and 89 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor during the week.
The market capitalisation of the DSE rose 2.06 per cent to Tk 4,828 billion on Thursday, up from Tk 4,730 billion in the week before.
Beximco - the flagship company of Beximco Group - continued to dominate the weekly turnover chart with 42.51 million shares worth over Tk 3.55 billion changing hands.
The port city's bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also ended higher with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - gaining 188 points to settle at 16,164 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX - advancing 116 points to finish the week at 9,749.
Of the issues traded, 126 declined, 102 advanced and 71 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city's bourse traded 57.56 million shares and mutual fund units with turnover value of Tk 2.54 billion during the week.
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