The country's capital market strongly rebounded on Sunday, breaking away from a six-day losing streak, largely supported by the state-run Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB).
The ICB started putting in investments in the market on receipt of a fund worth Tk 30 billion from the government.
The central bank last week disbursed the fund at an interest rate of 4 per cent for a period of 18 months after the government had provided sovereign guarantee against the fund to help the ailing market.
Having lost 133 points in the six sessions through Thursday, DSEX, broad index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), regained 73 points on Sunday.
"We have already started injecting the fund into the market," said Md. Abul Hossain, managing director of the ICB.
Asked about the stocks chosen for investments, Mr Hossain said the ICB always invests in fundamentally-good stocks.
For example, the National Bank has become weak in recent years. But at the time of ICB's investment the bank was well functional and profitable, the ICB chief said.
"So, the ICB's portfolio having junk stocks does not indicate that the corporation injected funds into weak companies.
"The ICB will never invest in junk stocks in the days to come. Our priority is 'A' category stocks," Mr. Hossain added.
The Dhaka bourse opened the Sunday's session with a positive note following the news of the disbursement of funds to the ICB account.
The DSEX exhibited an upward trend until the closure and it settled at 5,178 points with a gain of 1.43 per cent or 73 points.
Of the total issues traded, 232 advanced, 89 declined and 69 were unchanged. The DSE featured a turnover of Tk 3.04 billion, 13.48 per cent less than the previous session.
Investors' participation was concentrated mostly in the pharmaceuticals & chemicals sectors, which grabbed 33 per cent of the market turnover.
The sector was also on top of other sectors, exhibiting a return of 2.7 per cent on the DSE.
As a result, five of the top 10 index pullers were from this sector. Square Pharmaceuticals was the number one gainer and solely added 26.9 points to the broad index.
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