Stock markets stayed flat in the past week after two weeks of losses as extreme volatility along with short-term profit booking tendency made investors cautious.
The volume of trade that ended Thursday continued to decline, reflecting lack of investor interest in taking part in trading activities.
Of usual five trading sessions, opening session of the past week tumbled while the last four saw small gains.
During the past week, the benchmark index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, inched up 11 points or 0.3% to 4,484, marginally offsetting losses of 114 points in the two weeks.
The blue-chip comprising index DS30 gained marginally 2 points to 1,721. The DSE Shariah Index, DSES, saw a fractional loss of 0.8 point to 1,085.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Category Index, CSCX, closed at 8,383, moving up 14 points or 0.2%.
The week’s DSE daily average turnover declined further to Tk323 crore, down 28% over the previous week. The trading was dominated by engineering, textiles and pharmaceutical sectors, together making up 45% of the week’s total turnover.
The large cap sectors showed a mixed performance during the past week. Power posted a gain of 1%, followed by non-baking financial institutions 0.4% and food & allied 0.4%.
Engineering experienced the highest loss of 2.8%. Banks, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals also moved down 0.3%, 0.2% and 0.2% respectively.
Lanka Bangla Securities said: “The downward trend of the market halted as the benchmark index turned back to positive territory, touching a support level though the market participation remained significantly low.”
A majority of the large-cap stocks declined during the week. Berger Paints and United Power faced erosion of 4.8% and 1.9% respectively.
IDLC Investments said lucratively priced stocks attracted investors to take position along different cap classes. The market participation declined significantly amid surging intra-session volatility throughout the week, it said.
Bangladesh Steel Re-rolling Mills was the week’s turnover leader, followed by Lanka Bangla Finance, Orion Pharmaceuticals, CMC Kamal and Quasem Drycells.