Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh’s stocks edged higher on the last week of just concluded year as investors went buying spree in the last session amid positive expectations for the New Year.
The week featured five trading sessions as usual. Of them, first two sessions edged lower while last three witnessed marginal gains.
The prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) edged up by 21.32 points or 0.46 percent to settle the year at 4,629.64.
The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, advanced 3.15 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 1,750.59. The DSE Shariah Index witnessed a fractional gain of 0.64 point or 0.06 percent to close at 1,107.12.
The port city bourse Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also saw marginal gain with its Selective Categories Index - CSCX – advancing 22.06 points or 0.25 percent to end at 8,572.12.
Trading activities remained sluggish and total turnover on the premier bourse came down to BDT 19.38 billion, which was BDT 21.86 billion in the week before.
The daily turnover averaged BDT 3.87 billion, which was 11.35 per cent lower than the previous week’s average of BDT 4.37 billion.
“The week started with a negative mode which didn’t turn positive before the third sessions. Despite this improvement, investors prefer the wait only making end the hour of portfolio reallocation while they were looking ahead of 2016,” said IDLC Investments, a merchant bank, in its weekly market analysis.
International Leasing Securities, said, “Portfolio rebalancing by institutional investors just ahead of year-end kept the overall market activity shaky”.
The losers took a modest lead over the gainers as out of 326 issues traded, 153 closed lower, 137 higher and 36 remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor last week.
Beximco Pharma dominated the week’s turnover chart for the three consecutive weeks on the DSE with shares worth BDT 680 million changing hands during the week followed by Quasem Drycells, Emerald Oil, ACI, Beximco changed hands.
Monno Ceramics was the week’s best performer, posting a rise of 16.01 percent while Keya Cosmetics was the week’s worst loser, plunging by 17.81 percent.
BBN/SSR/AD