Stocks posted marginal correction for the second consecutive session on Monday as companies' quarterly earnings failed to meet the investors' expectation.
Market operators said investors mostly followed "wait-and-see' strategy and were observing the market movement carefully amid ongoing earnings declarations.
"The shaky investors continued to book quick-gain as earnings declarations fail to meet their expectations," commented EBL Securities, in its regular market analysis.
The stockbroker noted that the investors' selling spree was spurred on stocks especially from banking, non-banking financial institutions and telecommunication sectors.
Following the previous day's correction, the market opened with a mixed trend amid sluggish trading activities.
After witnessing volatility throughout the session, the key index of the major bourse fell more than 7.0 points while the CSE All Share Price Index (CASPI) lost 63 points at closing.
DSEX, the prime index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,806, shedding 7.15 points or 0.12 per cent over the previous session.
"The market continued its correction as investors are cautious regarding the earnings declaration by the companies," said AT Capital Partners, an asset management company, in an analysis.
Two other indices of the premier bourse also finished lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 7.21 points or 0.33 per cent to close at 2,180 and DSES (Shariah) dropped 5.18 points or 0.38 per cent to settle at 1,348.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, also fell slightly and the total turnover on the DSE amounting to Tk 4.85 billion, which was 1.42 per cent lower than the previous day's Tk 4.92 billion.
The banking sector continued to dominate the turnover list, grabbing nearly 24 per cent of the day's total turnover, followed by pharmaceuticals with 11 per cent and miscellaneous 10 per cent.
According to International Leasing Securities, profit booking tendency of risk-averse investors in cement, financial institution, telecommunications and banking sectors pushed down the market, though there were some attempts of intraday reversal.
The stockbroker noted that the expectant investors reshuffled their portfolio and took position on the lucrative price levels, especially in food, pharmaceutical and life insurance issues.
The major sectors showed mixed performance. Among the major sectors, non-bank financial institutions fell 1.0 per cent, followed by banking with 0.30 per cent and telecommunication lost 0.30 per cent.
On the other hand, food & allied, power, engineering and pharmaceuticals sectors gained 1.10 per cent, 0.50 per cent, 0.30 per cent and 0.30 per cent respectively.
The losers took a modest lead over the gainers as out of 336 issues traded, 152 closed lower, 130 closed higher and 54 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Beximco continued to dominate the DSE turnover chart with shares worth Tk 308 million changing hands, closely followed by Al-Arafah Islami Bank, BRAC Bank, Grameenphone and Usmania Glass.
Port city bourse CSE also closed lower with its CSE All Share Price Index - CAPSI- shedding 77 points to settle at 17,838 and Selective Categories Index - CSCX - falling 49 points to finish at 10,776 points.
Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 131 issues closed lower, 82 higher and 26 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 7.75 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 365 million in turnover.
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