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Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Bangladesh’s stocks fell marginally with falling turnover as late hours selling pressure wiped out the early gains, market operators said.
The risk-averse investors showed their selling spree on power, banking and pharmaceuticals stocks, taking the market into the red zone, they added.
The market opened higher and key index of the premier bourse gained about 25 points within first 40 minutes of trading. But rest of the session went down steadily.
Finally, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 14.43 points or 0.27 percent to settle at 5,325.
A stockbroker said the negative change in the index is mainly driven by significant negative movement in pharmaceuticals, power and banking sectors.
However, telecommunication sector witnessed the highest gain of 2.40 percent ridding on Grameenphone (GP).
Share price of GP, the largest market-cap listed company, continued to rise as its share surged 2.50 percent on Tuesday to close at BDT 397.70 each.
The two other indices also closed slightly lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.86 points to finish at 1,894 and the DSE Shariah Index shed 2.34 points to close at 1,263.
Turnover, another important indicator of the market, also fell below BDT 8.0 billion-mark and amounted to BDT 7.86 billion on the DSE which was 10 percent lower over the previous day’s BDT 8.73 billion.
According to International Leasing Securities, most of the investors adopted cautious stance ahead of announcement of the monetary policy statement for the first half of the fiscal year (FY) 2018-19 in the later part of this month.
Of the total 341 issues traded on the DSE trading floor, 173 declined, 120 advanced and 48 issues remained unchanged.
KDS Accessories topped the DSE turnover chart for the second running session with 2.42 million shares worth BDT 250 million changing hands.
The other turnover leaders were Monno Ceramic Industries, BBS Cables, Khulna Power Company and Square Pharmaceuticals.
Legacy Footwear was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 10 percent while the newly listed SK Trims Industries was the worst loser, losing 9.69 percent.
The port city bourse CSE edged lower with its CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI – losing 62 points to settle at 16,385 and the Selective Categories Index - CSCX –shedding 42 points to finish at 9,905.
The losers beat gainers as 141 issues closed lower, 79 ended higher, with 21 issues remained unchanged on the CSE.
The port city bourse traded 11.54 million shares and mutual fund units worth more than BDT 488 million in turnover.
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