FE Report
Stocks returned to the green Monday, snapping three consecutive losing sessions as lucrative price level lured some buyers amid country-wide shutdown enforced by BNP led 20-party alliance.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) went up marginally by 12.82 points or 0.26 per cent to close at 4,814.16 points amid modest volatility.
The DS30, comprising blue chips moved up by 1.12 points or 0.06 per cent to close at 1,780.59 points. However, the DSE Shariah Index dropped 1.07 points or 0.09 per cent to close at 1,136.83 points.
Turnover improved slightly, but remained below Tk 2.00 billion level. The total turnover amounted to Tk 1.89 billion, registering an increase of 21.15 per cent over the previous session's value of Tk 1.56 billion.
The investors' attention was mostly focused on power, pharma and bank - the sectors that accounted for 17.6 per cent, 15.7 per cent and 13.6 per cent respectively of the day's total turnover.
"Market's woe for slowed down investment under stressed political scenario had been discounted in equity market for weeks, which lured some buyers," LankaBangla Securities.
Though turnover remained low at Tk 1.89 billion amid the day long nationwide hartal, attractive price of fuel, textile and financial stocks spurred interest among the buyers, said the stock broker.
"Stocks turned positive amidst increased investors' participation from the previous session," said International Leasing Securities.
However, turnover remained low as the year closing phenomenon kept the large institutional investors aside of the market, said the International Leasing.
IDLC Investments said: "As morning optimism faded away in the later part of the session, DSEX barely closed in green while turnover remained muted and by the end of the day".
Zenith Investments said that stocks have reached at a critical juncture, breaking strong support level and creating new support zone instead of bump and recover, thus proving all analysts otherwise.
The large-cap sectors posted mixed results. Food and allied sector lost the most 0.41 per cent. Telecommunication and cement also retraced, going down by 0.35 per cent and 0.19 per cent respectively.
Banks and NBFIs gained 0.85 per cent and 0.20 per cent. Pharmaceutical and power yield a gain of 0.10 per cent each.
The gainers took a lead over the losers as out of 309 issues traded, 176 advanced, 84 declined and 49 remained unchanged on the DSE floor.
Activities increased in the major bourse where trade and volume were down 12.76 per cent and 24.29 per cent respectively. A total of 0.058 million trades were executed with trading volume of 50.15 million securities.
The market capitalisation on DSE stood at Tk 3,227.80 billion against Tk 3,222.54 billion in the previous session.
Lafarge Surma Cement was the most traded stock for back-to-back sessions with shares worth Tk 97.09 million changing hands followed by DESCO, MJL BD, GP and Beximco Pharma.
Prime Life Insurance was the day's top gainer, posting a rise of 8.0 per cent while Dula Mia Cotton was the day's worst loser, plunging 6.49 per cent.
The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed in the green with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX - gained 36.39 points to close at 8,981.77 points.
Gainers beat losers 146 to 56, with 42 issues remaining unchanged at the port city bourse that traded 4.75 million shares and mutual fund units, turnover value of Tk 152.03 million.
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