Stocks lost their ground for the fifth consecutive week, as continued selling pressure mainly from institution hit investor sentiment.
The bourses have shortened trading session in the past week that ended Thursday to four instead of usual five to mark Independence Day on March 26.
The benchmark DSEX lost nearly 51 points or 1% to close the week at 4,508. The blue chip index DS30 fell 27 points or 1.7% to 1,608.
The Shariah Index dropped marginally 8 points or 0.8% to 981. The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, shed 86 points or 1% to close the week at 8,773.
Volume of trade continued to worsen with the DSE turnover sinking to five months low on first trading day of the past week.
The week’s average daily turnover plunged to Tk285 crore, registering a drop of more than 7% over the previous week’s average of Tk300 crore.
“Current downtrend in the market continued with few unsuccessful resistances in the past week. The bearish spell sucked up enthusiasm from the investors, leaving them directionless and timid,” said IDLC Investments in its weekly market analysis. Consequently, participation was conservative, bringing down average turnover level below Tk300 crore, it said.
“Demoralised investment sentiment turned shaky amid ever shrinking volume, depleting breathing space for the participants. In this scenario market continued to sink. Naturally, contrarians tried to get in and reverse the direction of the market, seeing 4,500 points level to break.”
Lanka Bangla Securities said selling frenzy of investors continued over the week despite gains in last two
trading sessions. First two days of the past week were deep in red in continuation of the previous week, it said.
During the past week, the DSEX dropped to 4,463 level at one point reaching near to support level of 4,456 which has brought back some investors from the sideline, it said.
“Buying pressure in some heavyweight companies during the last two trading sessions of the week pulled the index over 4,500 level.”
It said institutional participation has gone down greatly as Bangladesh Bank is strictly monitoring capital market exposure of banks.
“Continued downfall of the market, have brought the index, almost to its support zone, from which the trend may take a reversal any moment,” said Zenith Investments.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers at DSE as out of 300 issues traded, 184 declined, 94 advanced and 22 issues remained unchanged.
All the major sectors suffered from the market setback last week except telecommunications which gained more than 1%.
Food and allied, and non-banking financial institutions were the worst losers with drop of over 2% and 1.5% respectively, followed by fuel and power 1% and pharmaceuticals 0.9%.
Engineering and, food and allied sectors dominated the turnover, making up 15% and 10% respectively of the past week’s total turnover.
Square Pharmaceuticals dominated the week’s top turnover chart with shares worth Tk62 crore changing hands in the past the week, followed by Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, Emerald Oil Industries, Lafarge Surma Cement and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd.