Stocks witnessed another flat session on Thursday when daily transactions declined on lower demand.
Brokers said the market ended flat as a section of investor bagged profit while some others were busy rebalancing portfolio ahead of earnings and dividend declarations of financial sectors.
The market started on positive note and the key index rose more than 23 points within first 30 minutes of trading. But rest of the session eroded almost all the initial gains amid selling pressure.
At the end of the session, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,688, advancing 2.07 points or 0.03 per cent over the previous day.
However, the two other indices stayed in the red. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.80 points to finish at 1,990 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 0.64 point to close at 1,303.
Trading activities dipped below Tk 5.0 billion-mark as total turnover of the session stood at Tk 4.91 billion, which was 13.55 per cent lower than the previous session’s turnover of Tk 5.68 billion.
A total number of 115,431 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 112.10 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of the DSE declined slightly to Tk 4,130 billion, from Tk 4,135 billion in the previous day.
The gainers took a modest lead over the losers as out of 342 traded issues, 155 advanced, 141 declined and 46 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Monno Ceramic Industries topped the DSE turnover chart for the second straight session with shares worth Tk 371 million changing hands, closely followed by Dutch-Bangla Bank, Premier Bank, BDCOM Online and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company.
Pragati Insurance was the day’s best performer, posting 8.50 per cent gain while Meghna Condensed Milk was the day’s worst loser, losing 8.67 per cent.
However, the port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), finished marginally lower with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI – losing 26 points to settle at 17,395 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX –shedding 15 points to finish at 10,537.
The losers beat the gainers as 100 issues closed lower, 99 ended higher and 38 remained unchanged.
The port city bourse traded 4.51 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than Tk 134 million in turnover.
