Stocks snap 4-day winning spell

Stocks slipped into the red Monday, snapping a four-day gaining streak, as investors preferred to book quick-gain on their investment over the recent price surge.

Market insiders said the retail investors went for booking profits, especially banking sector issues, which triggered a selling pressure across the market.

The banking sector witnessed the highest correction of 1.62 per cent as prices of 25 banks out of 30 listed banks closed in the red.

"The trading activities remained below Tk 4.0 billion-mark as institutional investors could not support the market more because of persistent liquidity crisis in the financial market," said an analyst at a leading brokerage firm.

He noted that ambiguity over the Dhaka bourse's share sales to a strategic partner and concerns over the ongoing liquidity crunch contributed to the fall in indices.

Meanwhile, prices of CAPM IBBL Islamic Mutual Fund, which made trading debut on Monday, came down below the face value, losing 10 per cent to close at Tk 9.0 per unit on the DSE.

Following the previous four days' positive movement, the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) opened on negative trend and the downward trend continued till end of the session.

Port city bourse CSE also drifted lower with CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -losing 142 points to settle at 18,030 and Selective Categories Index - CSCX -falling 86 points to finish at 10,882 points.

Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 148 issues closed lower, 62 nudged higher and 17 remained unchanged on the CSE.

The port city bourse traded 5.66 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 263 million in turnover.

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