Stocks extended losses for the fourth consecutive week with continued lacklustre trading.
The week ended Thursday witnessed intense selling pressure particularly on pharmaceuticals, energy and telecommunications.
The benchmark DSEX fell 76.5 points or 1.7% to 4,559, which is more than two and half month low.
The blue chips comprising DS30 was down 34 points or 2% to close at 1,635. The DSE Shariah Index (DSES) dropped 24 points or 2.5% to 989.
Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Categories Index CSCX lost 171 points or 1.9% to close the week at 8,859.
The average daily turnover continued to dip with DSE turnover standing at Tk300 crore, registering a fall of 25% over the previous week.
“Grasping of realised gain in large cap scrips caused the week’s downturn,” said IDLC Investments in its weekly market analysis.
Additionally, marginal level of panic sale reverberated and continued throughout the week, it said.
“As cautious stance came up-front, market activity became sluggish, causing average turnover declining further. Amid the shaky sentiment, investors put much intention on re-balancing their portfolio in line with loss-aversion strategy.”
Starting with the decline in financial sector scrips especially bank, market stayed gloomy throughout the week.
Coupled with this, frequent spells of sell pressure, particularly in large cap scrips forced the market sentiment to retract, significantly.
Lanka Bangla Securities said market experienced severe selling pressure in the first three days of the past week. A psychological support level of 4,500 points moved back the index to green zone at the last trading day of the past week, it said.
Banking sector market capitalisation was up by 0.22% at the end of week after losing more than 4% in previous week. “The lower valuation level of banking sector might have allured value investors a little bit,” said Lanka Bangla. Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 301 issues traded during the past week, 224 declined, 65 advanced and 12 issues remained unchanged.
Among the major sectors, top gaining sectors of the past week were food and allied that rose 1.6%, bank 0.22% and IT 0.01%.
The week’s worst performing sectors were pharmaceuticals that declined 3%, energy 2.6%, telecommunications 1.7% and non-banking financial institutions 0.4%.
The investors’ attention was mostly focused on pharmaceuticals and engineering sectors, which captured leading positions in turnover, making up 12.8% and 11.9% respectively of the week’s total turnover.
Square Pharma was the week’s top turnover chart with shares worth Tk82.6 crore changing hands, followed by Bangladesh Shipping Corporation, Emerald Oil Industries, Padma Oil and Lafarge Surma Cement.
Source: UNBConnect
