Stocks edged lower in a volatile trade Monday with the benchmark index DSEX slipping to nearly three-week low.
The market started the session with a steep gain in the morning but late profit booking mainly on large cap companies sent the market to the negative territory.
The benchmark index lost 6 points or 0.2% to 4,071, lowest since August 21. The blue chip index DS30 was down 8 points or 0.6% to 1,512.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, witnessed fractional drop of 0.09 points to 7,934.
The total turnover value at DSE amounted to Tk4.3bn, up 25.3% from previous session’s 3-week low of Tk3.4bn. Gainers outpaced the losers as out of 290 issues traded, 153 gained, 106 declined and 31 remained unchanged.
“Pessimism continued to take toll on the bourse for the third straight session, pulling DSEX down,” said IDLC in its daily market analysis.
As investment outlook stayed bleak over rising political warm-up, fear grew strong amid investment community, keeping market participation indolent, it said.
Profit booking in some of the large cap scrips was seen, sending the market in the negative territory.
Meanwhile, scrip wise swings was vigilant during session as 63 out of 290 traded scrips posted more than 4% movements in their respective prices.
“Overall market sentiment was volatile as investors were pursuing meticulous strategy in their day-to-day trading activities.
In addition, they were seemed to remain watchful over future market directions and political frontier,” said the IDLC.
Among the losers, telecommunications lost the most posting a drop of 2.7%, followed by banks 0.6%, financial institutions 0.46% and power 0.27%. Tannery, food and allied and pharmaceutical posted maximum gains.
Market activity was mostly centralised to pharmaceutical sector, driven by Square Pharmaceutical, Active Fine Chemicals and Renata, which accounted for 16% of total turnover, followed by textile 14% and telecommunications 11%.
Grameenphone continued to dominate the turnover’s chart over the several sessions as the stock accumulated turnover worth Tk332m.
It is followed by Square Pharmaceuticals, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, Padma Oil, Tallu Spinning, Active Fine Chemicals and Heidelberg Cement.
