Stocks finished almost flat on Thursday after volatile trading as investors booked profits with cautious positioning.
Analysts said the market finished flat as a section of investors continued binge selling while some others were busy rebalancing portfolio amid ongoing earnings declarations.
The market opened on upward trend and the key index of the major bourse rose about 27 points within first 20 minutes of trading.
But sale pressure in the later part of the session led the prime index to close almost flat.
DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), settled at 5,275 points, advancing only 3.44 points or 0.06 per cent after losing 122 points in the past three consecutive sessions.
The DSE Shariah Index also gained 2.32 points to close at 1,220. However, the DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 6.70 points to finish at 1,851.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, stood at Tk 3.76 billion, which was 13 per cent higher than the previous day’s turnover of Tk 3.31 billion.
The gainers took a modest lead over the losers as out of 344 issues traded, 164 advanced, 128 declined and 52 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.
A total number of 103,583 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 127.30 million securities.
The market capitalisation of the DSE rose to Tk 3,885 billion on Thursday, from Tk 3,884 billion in the previous day.
Fortune Shoes topped the turnover chart again with 4.95 million shares worth Tk 192 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were Indo-Bangla Pharma, Esquire Knit Composite, Kattali Textile and Monno Ceramic.
Oimex Electrode was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 9.86 per cent while Daffodil Computers was as the worst loser, losing 6.15 per cent.
However, the port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange, finished slightly lower with its CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI –shedding 23 points to settle at 16,186 points and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX –losing 14 points to finish at 9,800.
Here too, the gainers beat losers, as 106 issues closed higher, 82 ended lower and 36 remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 7.07 million shares and mutual fund units worth Tk 201 million in turnover.