Stocks ended flat amid volatile trading on Wednesday as late profit booking cut early gains.
The market moved between positive and negative throughout the session with intra-day volatility of more than 50 points.
The benchmark index, DSEX, ended at 4,268 with slight fall of nearly 9 points or 0.2%, hitting highest its 4,315 in the morning and lowest 4,262 in the midsession.
However, the DS30 Index comprising blue chips rose over 7 points or 0.6% to 1,516.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Category Index, CSCX, was down 29 points to 8,390.
Cautious trading pushed turnover down below Tk6bn-mark as DSE turnover was Tk5.9bn, a fall of more than 20% over the previous session.
Market passed a volatile trading session with lower turnover, indicating investors staying on the sidelines to observe market movement, said Lanka Bangla Securities in its market analysis.
It said throughout the session, market exhibited a zigzag pattern as buyers and sellers both were confused about their trade execution.
Market closed flat without having any clear direction because of the cautious trading behavior of both buyers and sellers, it said.
It seems investors are eyeing on imminent political outlook of the country and still remain unsure whether upcoming national election will be held peacefully, according to it.
Losers took a marginal lead over the gainers as out of 287 issues traded, 110 advanced, 136 decline and 41 remained unchanged.
IDLC Investment said while market struggled to remain positive, waves of sell pressure beat it down, in frequent intervals, causing it to close flat.
Hovering political uncertainty coupled with absence of any major upcoming dividend or earnings declaration in the near term has created a vacuum of motivation in the market, causing activities in the market to drop by 20%, it said.
All the major sectors managed to end in green except banks which saw a loss of 0.74%. Telecommunications performed best among all the sectors with a rise of over 2%, followed by financial institutions 0.8% and pharmaceuticals 0.6% and power 0.2%.
Delta Life Insurance was the most traded stocks with shares worth Tk640m changing hands.
It was followed by RN Spinning, Envoy Textile, Meghna Petroleum, Generation Next Fashion, Paramount Textile, Central Pharmaceuticals and Orion Pharmaceuticals.
