Stocks fell sharply with volatility in the past week as new political development worried investors.
The benchmark index DSEX tumbled 148 points or nearly 3% to 5,025 after edging higher over the previous week.
The comprising blue chips DS30 index fell 82 points or 4% to 1,867. The DSE Shariah Index closed at 1,180, shedding 40 points or 3%.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) Selective Categories Index, CSCX, declined sharply over 258 points or 2.7% to close at 9,442.
The bourse shortened trading sessions to four instead of five on account of public holiday to mark the Holy Ashura. Of them, first three sessions saw steep decline while the last one managed to close slightly higher.
The past week’s total turnover, however, remained almost same. The daily turnover for the past week averaged Tk694 crore, registering an increase of over 25% over the previous week.
Investors concentrated their position on engineering, power and pharmaceuticals – the sectors that accounted for 22%, 20% and 14.6% respectively of the week’s total value.
IDLC Investments said fear of political anarchy amid nation-wide strikes slashed market movements as well as investors’ confidence.
It said the investors streamlined their portfolio allocation very carefully and pursued ‘wait and see’ approach.
Lanka Bangla Securities said the benchmark index, DSEX lost 148 points during the week as investors went selling frenzy amid week-long countrywide strike.
It said at the last trading session of the past week index got support near 5,000-level which indicated investors’ reluctance to sell stocks at this price level.
The main reason for this slide in price seemed to be the stale performance by most of the listed entities in July to September quarter, it said, adding that looking at the earnings figure one can infer that business environment in local market has not yet got its momentum.
However, newly listed companies dominated throughout the week registering hefty returns, according to Lanka Bangla.
Among the major sectors, cement lost 6% while engineering sector registered astounding 8% gain in the market cap.
All the major sectors yield negative returns in the past week. Telecommunication posted the highest loss of the week, going down by 6%, power 2.6% and pharmaceuticals 2.8%.
In the financial sectors – banks and non-banking financial institutions – both closed in red, losing more than 2% each.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 313 issues traded, 218 declined, 75 advanced and 20 remained unchanged in the past week.
