Stocks lost ground again on Wednesday, extending the losing streak for the fifth straight session, as the national election nears.
Market operators said the institutional investors mostly followed cautious stance ahead of the national election and the deteriorating health of the banking sector have hit investors hard, taking the market in the red further.
The rising non-performing loans in the banking sector coupled with huge provisioning shortfall eroded investors’ confidence, said a leading broker.
The market opened on positive note and the key index rose about 17 points within first 90 minutes of trading. But, rest of the session went down steadily.
At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,265, losing nearly 10 points or 0.18 per cent over the previous day.
Two other indices—the DS30 index and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES)–also edged lower.
The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, shed 5.93 points to finish at 1,842 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 2.74 points to close at 1,210.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, remained low and the total turnover amounted to Tk 4.87 billion, which was Tk 4.83 billion in the previous day.
A total number of 133,058 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 110.40 million securities.
The market capitalisation of the DSE also fell to Tk 3,808 billion on the day which was Tk 3,815 billion in the previous day.
The gainers, however, took a modest lead over the losers as out of 340 issues traded, 163 advanced, 128 declined, and 49 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
The low-cap companies dominated the turnover chart with JMI Syringes & Medical Devices topped the DSE turnover chart with 595,928 shares worth Tk 152 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were Meghna Life Insurance, Square Pharma, SK Trims & Industries and VFS Thread Dyeing.
Prime Islami Life Insurance was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 10 per cent while Information Services Network was the worst loser for the third running days, losing 9.74 per cent further.
The port city bourse CSE saw slight loss with its CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI –losing 3.18 points to settle at 16,159 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX –shedding 2.47 points to finish at 9,779.
The gainers beat losers as 116 issues closed higher, 92 ended lower and 35 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 5.17 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 169 million in turnover.
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