Stocks finished marginally lower on Wednesday as investors were mostly cautious amid ongoing sluggish market trend.
Market analysts said investors remained worried about the recent volatility of the market and maintained cautious stance, taking the market in the negative territory once again.
The market opened on positive note and the key index of the major bourse rose about 12 points within first 10 minutes of trading. But late hour sale pressure led the prime index to close lower.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 4936, losing 13.02 points or 0.26 per cent over the previous day.
Two other indices also ended marginally lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 1.24 points to finish at 1,758 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 3.90 points to close at 1,136.
Turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, however, rose to Tk 3.46 billion, which was 14 per cent higher than the previous day’s turnover of Tk 3.04 billion.
Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 354 issues traded, 209 closed lower, 108 ended higher and 37 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
A total number of 104,570 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 109.51 million shares and mutual fund units.
The market-cap of the DSE also fell slightly to Tk 3,730 billion on Wednesday, from Tk 3,737 billion in the previous session.
Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company topped the turnover chart with shares worth nearly Tk 122 million changing hands, followed by National Tubes, Beacon Pharma, Summit Power and Grameenphone.
CAMP BDBL Mutual Fund 01 was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 9.41 per cent while Golden Harvest Agro Industries was the worst loser, plunging by 8.78 per cent after the news of its rights share.
The port city’s bourse, the Chittagong Stock Exchange, also ended slightly lower with its All Shares Price Index (CAPSI) -- CASPI—losing 7.64 points to close at 15,040 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX –shedding 3.22 points to finish at 9,136.
Here too, losers beat the gainers as 127 issues closed lower, 80 ended ginger and 36 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 4.70 million shares and mutual fund units worth nearly Tk 119 million in turnover.