Stocks posted marginal gain on Tuesday after choppy trading as the investors were active both sides of the trading fence throughout the session.
Market insiders said a section of investors sold shares from power, financial institutions and telecom sectors while some took position on banking, textile and cement issues.
Meanwhile, listed companies with low capitalisation continued to dominate the gainers' chart though they had no price sensitive information (PSI).
Pacific Denims was the day's highest gainer with 10 per cent increase, followed by Dragon Sweater with 9.89 per cent, Fine Foods 9.82 per cent, VFS Thread 9.70 per cent and Metro Spinning 8.86 per cent.
The market showed upward trend during the first hour of trading reaching as high as 5,394 points, but started falling afterwards. However, last minutes buying spree helped the index to close slightly higher.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went up by 11.02 points or 0.20 per cent to settle at 5,380 over the previous day.
LankaBangla Securities said that this upward shift in the index is mainly driven by significant positive changes in banking, cement and textile sectors.
Among the major sectors, textile witnessed the highest gain of 1.50 per cent, followed by cement with 0.90 per cent, banking 0.80 per cent and food 0.23 per cent.
The power sector saw the highest loss of 0.91 per cent, followed by financial institutions with 0.69 per cent, telecommunication 0.17 per cent, pharmaceuticals 0.13 per cent and engineering 0.11 per cent.
Two other indices also saw marginal gains. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, advanced 4.33 points to close at 1,892 and the DSE Shariah Index gained 1.10 points to close at 1,241 points.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, however, fell to Tk 4.88 billion, which was 11 per cent lower than the previous day's Tk 5.50 billion.
According to International Leasing Securities the enthusiastic investors went for buying shares on textile, cement, banking sectors riding on the news that the net foreign fund in stocks turned positive in September after five months.
The risk-averse investors liquidated their holdings mostly from insurance, power, financial institutions and telecom sectors, said the stockbroker.
Of the 336 issues traded, 158 closed lower, 153 ended higher and 25 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
A total number of 119,619 trades were executed in the day's trading session with trading volume of 124.28 million securities.
The market capitalisation of the DSE stood at Tk 3,872 billion on the day which was Tk 3,873 billion in the previous session.
United Power Generation & Distribution Company dominated the turnover chart with 1.37 million shares worth Tk 448 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were IFAD Autos, Nurani Dyeing, Khulna Power Company and Dragon Sweater.
Republic Insurance was the worst loser for the second day, losing 9.37 per cent.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended marginally higher with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI - advancing 40 points to settle at 16,585 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -gaining 23 points to finish at 10,043.
The gainers beat losers as 119 issues ended higher, 86 lower and 33 issues remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city's bourse traded 7.78 million shares and mutual fund units worth Tk 342 million in turnover.
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