Stocks ended flat amid volatility yesterday as late selling pressure mainly on large cap issues cut early gains.
After failing to sustain an initial upward move, stocks have fluctuated over the course of the trading. The intraday volatility was more than 36 points.
However, some other stocks gained owing to positive return in quarterly earnings, sending the market in the negative territory.
The benchmark DSEX inched 5 points or 0.2% higher to 4,472, hitting highest 4,504 in the morning and lowest 4,467 in the mid session.
The Shariah index, however, marginally fell – nearly 2 points or 0.2% to 1,020. The comprising blue chips DS30 was down 4 points or 0.3% to 1,650.
Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, gained 30 points to 8,482.
Trading activities at the DSE declined to Tk491 crore, down 12.2% over the previous session.
The market bellwether banks appreciated by only 0.4% and 24 out of 30 banking scrips sustained in positive territory with progressive news of half yearly earnings improvement.
Food and allied, and telecommunication also edged up while power, non-banking financial institutions, cement and pharmaceuticals edged down.
Lanka Bangla Securities said the choppy trading comes on the heels of the profit booking that was observed throughout the day.
“Buying interest was mostly generated by the news that net profit of nearly 80% of the listed private banks have increased in the first half of this year due mainly to higher income from treasury bonds and improved import situation.”
IDLC Investments said with the back of volatility, market absorbed flat end as session closed.
It said bullish beginning couldn’t sustain ahead of profit booking in large caps. Eventually, remaining meticulous, investors were searching for investment worthy spread in mini and small caps, it said.
Zenith Investments said market kicked off with a bullish swagger, slowed its pace in the middle and managed to avert a downfall at the end.
Investors have glued their attention on some selective large cap scrips that have kept the money inflow into the stock market, it said.
“On a different note, most of the stocks that roared on the previous day, gave in to the pressure of profit taking which have somewhat slowed the pace of the overall momentum of indices to move forward.”
Beximco Limited topped the liquidity chart with Tk35 crore worth of turnover.
It was followed by Golden Son, ACI Limited, Lafarge Surma Cement, Padma Oil, Megna Petroleum and Argon Denim.
