Stocks extended the winning streak for the third week in a row as enthusiastic investors keep their appetite for large-cap issues amid optimism.
Market-insiders said the positive momentum in large-cap issues, especially from telecoms, food and allied, pharmaceuticals and banking sectors, helped the Dhaka bourse to close at record high on Thursday, the last weekday of this week.
"The market extended the gaining spell riding on heavyweight telecoms and banking-sector issues which affected the index largely," said an analyst at a leading brokerage firm.
The telecoms sector surged more than 6.02 per cent as shares of GrameenPhone, the lone listed mobile phone company with the largest market-cap, jumped 6.0 per cent this week. It settled at Tk 486.30 in the last session.
The banking sector posted a 0.93 per cent return, as 18 banks, out of 30 listed banks, closed higher.
Three sessions, out of five trading days of the week, ended higher with a combined gain of 112.13 points, while the remaining two sessions lost 23.60 points.
Week on week, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), which replaced the DGEN nearly five years back, gained 88.53 points or 1.43 per cent to finish at 6,282, the highest since the DSEX was launched on January 27, 2013.
"As disclosures of quarterly earnings of several companies met the investors' expectations, investors kept buying fresh stocks to rebalance their portfolios," commented EBL Securities, a stockbroker, in its weekly market analysis.
The stockbroker noted that positive movement of large-cap stocks has been the driving force behind the rise of index throughout the week.
The DS30 index also followed suit to finish at historical high of 2,279 points, after gaining 35.54 points or 1.58 per cent. The DSE also launched the DS30 index on January 27, 2013 with a base point of 1,460.30.
The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) rose 34.16 points or 2.55 per cent to settle at 1,375 points.
The port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended higher with its Selective Categories Index, CSCX, closing 152 points or 1.31 per cent higher at 11,769.
The bullish sentiment was reflected in the turnover activities as the total turnover of the week reached Tk 46.85 billion on the DSE, up from Tk 35.91 billion in the previous week.
The block trade contributed 7.10 per cent to the total weekly turnover, with stocks like Shahjalal Islami Bank, Eastern Cables, Olympic Industries, ACI and Square Pharma dominating the block trade board.
The turnover averaged Tk 9.36 billion a day -- over 36 per cent higher than the previous week's average of Tk 7.18 billion. The banking sector kept its dominance on the turnover chart, capturing 40 per cent of the week's total transactions, followed by engineering sector (12 per cent) and pharmaceuticals sector (10 per cent).
International Leasing Securities, a stockbroker, said, "Investors' increased concentration on the telecoms, pharmaceuticals and engineering sector stocks helped the Dhaka bourse add 88.5 points in this week and hit its all-time high."
The stockbroker noted that some other investors were reshuffling their portfolios from IT, textile and general insurance sectors after observing the year-end corporate declarations and first quarter earnings disclosures.
Among the major sectors, telecommunications posted the highest gain of 6.0 per cent, followed by food & allied (5.07 per cent), pharmaceuticals (3.19 per cent) and banking sector (0.91 per cent).
Out of 337 issues traded, 185 closed lower, 135 ended higher and 17 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor in this week.
The market capitalisation of the DSE rose 1.80 per cent to reach all-time high of Tk 4,255 billion at the closing session of the week, up from Tk 4,179 billion on the opening day of the week.
Brac Bank topped the week's turnover chart with 16.14 million shares totalling Tk 1.76 billion changing hands, closely followed by City Bank (Tk 1.65 billion), Dhaka Bank (Tk 1.53 billion), GrameenPhone (Tk 1.50 billion) and AB Bank (Tk 1.49 billion).
Eastern Cables was the week's best performer, booking a gain of 19.28 per cent while Eastern Lubricants was the week's biggest loser, shedding 18.86 per cent.
