Stocks extended the rally for the second straight session on Wednesday as investors kept their buying interest on major sector issues riding on the regulator's latest steps.
The market opened higher and the upbeat trend sustained until the end of the session with no sign of reversal, eventually ending over 76 points higher.
DSEX, the prime index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, went up by 76.34 points or 1.16 per cent to settle at 6,606. The core index recovered 124 points in the past two consecutive sessions.
Market operators said the market stayed afloat as the bargain hunters kept their buying spree on major sector stocks riding on regulatory steps to increase the fund flow in the capital market.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) recently urged the brokers, dealers, merchant bankers and asset management companies to take initiatives to make fresh investments in the market.
Some institutional investors have begun fresh injections of money into fundamentally sound stocks, according to a merchant banker.
"Stocks buoyed on regulatory stances while investors exhibited bargain-hunting on selective issues as institutional fund flow increased in the market," said EBL Securities.
Several stockbrokers told this correspondent that their authorised representatives or traders who execute buy-sell orders were alert and conservative following the regulatory crackdown on aggressive selling in the market.
"The aggressive sell-off stopped following the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission's intervention," said a leading broker.
The securities regulator Monday ordered the suspension of 15 authorised traders for aggressively selling off shares of several companies.
On Tuesday, the BSEC also served show cause notices on 15 stockbrokers for placing aggressive orders for selling shares.
The stock market regulator on Wednesday imposed a standard downward circuit breaker limit of share to 5.0 per cent instead of 2.0 per cent--based on the previous trading day's closing price.
"The investors showed their interest in the cheaper stocks and put fresh bets on the sector-specific issues," said International Leasing Securities.
Ten large-cap stocks such as Robi, Beximco, ICB, Walton, Dutch-Bangla Bank, Grameenphone, IPDC Finance, BSC, Pubali Bank and Fortune Shoes jointly contributed half of the day's gains, according to amarstock.com, a market data analyst.
Two other indices also ended higher with the DSE30 Index, comprising blue chips, rising 27.71 points to finish at 2,463 and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES) rose 10.72 points to close at 1,454.
Turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, stood at Tk 6.05 billion on the country's premier bourse, which was 0.85 per cent higher over previous day's tally of Tk 6.0 billion.
Of the 379 issues traded, 269 advanced, 78 declined and 32 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
Beximco topped the turnover list with shares of Tk 537 million changing hands, followed by JMI Hospital Requisite Manufacturing (Tk 433 million), IPDC Finance (Tk 352 million), Bangladesh Submarine Cable (Tk 351 million) and Bangladesh Building Systems (Tk 137 million).
JMI Hospital Requisite Manufacturing continued to top the gainer list, posting a 9.98 per cent gain, while Aramit was the day's worst loser, losing 1.99 per cent.
The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended higher with the CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -rising 218 points to settle at 19,450 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX -rose 130 points to close at 11,669.
Of the issues traded, 172 advanced, 66 declined, and 24 issues remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port-city bourse traded 11.55 million shares and mutual fund units with turnover value worth Tk 324 million.
