Stocks slip for 2nd straight week

Dhaka stocks declined for the second straight week as the negative sentiment weighed on investors.

The benchmark DSEX index slumped 165 points or 2.41 per cent to end the week at 6,702 points. In two weeks, it lost 116 points.

The DSES Shariah index shed 38 points or 2.64 per cent at 1,423 while the bluechip comprising DS30 index shed 74 points or 2.88 per cent at 2,511.

The daily average turnover also fell 18.25 per cent to Tk 763 crore over the previous week.

Keeping similar pace with other market indicators, the bourse’s market capitalization also declined 2.24 per cent to Tk 5.40 lakh crore in the week.

“Investors’ sentiment was pessimistic due to uncertainties regarding regulatory moves, current liquidity scenario of the money market and concerns about adverse impact on macro variables because of growing inflationary pressure,” said EBL Securities in its weekly market commentary.

The stock broker also noted that investors tried to portfolio rebalance in the week by taking positions in the low cap Insurance sector stocks.

The bourse started the week negatively (-1.24 per cent) on Sunday and extended the losing streak the next day. The market gained on Tuesday (+0.31 per cent) but failed to retain the trend and ended the following two sessions in red.

Investors were mostly active in general insurance (15.0 per cent), miscellaneous (14.4 per cent) and bank (13.2 per cent) sectors.

Most sectors witnessed negative performance out of which general insurance (8.8 per cent), paper and printing (6.2 per cent) and jute (1.8 per cent) witnessed highest return this week and IT (-7.8 per cent), tannery (-6.7 per cent) and cement (-5.8 per cent) witnessed the most correction.

National Life Insurance turned out to be the top index puller of the week as it contributed 0.5 per cent to the week’s gain. On the contrary, BATBC was the top index dragger as it contributed 7.2 per cent of the week’s total fall.

The port city bourse, CSE also registered loss this week as CSCX and CASPI declined by 330.0 and 545.4 points respectively.