Stocks slipped into the red Tuesday as investors went on late hours selling binge, particularly on banking sector shares.
Market analysts said investors were mostly on selling mode, particularly on banking and non-bank financial issues, taking the market in the red zone.
Banking and financial institutions sectors saw price correction amid recent uncertainty, poor governance and soaring non-performing loans, commented EBL Securities.
Accordingly, the banking sector suffered 0.70 per cent loss, after the previous day's 2.05 per cent gain, with prices of 23 banks, out of 30, closed in the red.
The news on central bank's move to raise banks' paid-up capital and hopes for cuts in interest rates on savings instruments which attracted the investors faded away, said a leading broker.
He noted that institutional investors mostly followed cautious stance ahead of dividend and earnings disclosures.
The financial institutions are set to gear up their earnings announcement from the next month.
The market opened on upward note and the key index of the prime bourse rose about 15 points within 25 minutes of trading. But rest of the session went down steadily.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,738, losing 17.15 points or 0.29 per cent over the previous session.
Two other indices also edged lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.33 points to finish at 2014 and the DSES (Shariah) index lost 0.22 points to settle at 1,319.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, also fell to Tk 6.79 billion, which was 5.43 per cent lower than the previous day's turnover of Tk 7.18 billion.
A total number of 140,164 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 132.43 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of the DSE came down to Tk 4,163 billion, from Tk 4,167 billion in the previous day.
According to International Leasing Securities, selling of shares mostly in bank, financial institutions, engineering, textile, power and food sectors pushed down the prime index.
Engineering sector witnessed the highest correction 0.87 per cent, followed by food 0.71 per cent, banking 0.70 per cent, financial institutions 0.62 per cent and power 0.14 per cent.
Pharmaceuticals and telecommunication sector gained 0.73 per cent and 0.27 per cent.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers, as out of 345 issues traded, 194 closed lower, 113 ended higher and 39 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
The port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended lower with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - losing 58 points to settle at 17,534 while the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -shedding 31 points to finish at 10,622.
Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 164 issues ended lower, 75 closed higher and 30 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 6.04 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 203 million in turnover.
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