Stocks rise led by Robi

Dhaka stocks gained on Monday following the modest-profit booking in the previous session.

Shares of Union Insurance were frozen for the second straight session at the 10 per cent upper circuit at Tk 12.1 on the debut day on the Dhaka Stock Exchange.

The benchmark DSEX index rose 35 points or 0.5 per cent to settle at 7,055, extending its gaining streak for the fourth straight session.

The Shariah-based index DSES was marginally up 3 points or 0.19 per cent at 1,505 while the blue-chip comprising the DS30 index moved up 9 points or 0.36 per cent at 2,607.

Robi, the second-largest mobile phone operator and fourth-biggest heavyweight company by market cap, came to the spotlight soaring more than 3 per cent after the fall in the previous day, contributing almost 14 points to the key index.

Apart from Robi, other market pullers included Beximco Ltd, Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC), Orion Pharmaceuticals, BSRM Ltd, SAIF Powertec, Lafarge Holicm Bangladesh and Social Islami Bank Limited.

“Indices settled upward as expectations of positive market momentum as driving investors’ buying spree, beating worries of rising Covid cases in the country,” said the EBL Securities in a note.

It said the buoyant investors showed their buying appetite in a few sector-specific issues ahead of the forthcoming earning declarations.

As a result, investors’ participation in the market advanced while total turnover increased 12 per cent to Tk 1,687 crore as against Tk 1,507 crore in the previous session.

On the sectoral front, miscellaneous (13.9 per cent) issues exerted the highest turnover followed by pharmaceuticals (11.3 per cent) and fuel (9.6 per cent) stocks.

The majority of the sectors displayed satisfactory performance, out of which services (5 per cent), general insurance (2.1 per cent), and miscellaneous (2 per cent) have exerted the most positive returns while ceramics (-4.7 per cent), jute (-2.9 per cent), and paper (-1.6 per cent) observed the most corrections on the bourse.

The majority of the stocks closed in green territory. Out of the 383 issues traded, 173 advanced, 152 declined, and 58 remained unchanged.

After Union Insurance, the other top gainers were Samorita Hospital, Orion Infusion, Prime Life Insurance, BSC and Fu Wang Food and Progressive Life Insurance.

BSC was the largest turnover leader, followed by SAIF Powertec, Beximco Ltd, Orion Pharmaceuticals, Power Grid, RAK Ceramics, and GPH Ispat.

The port city bourse, CSE, settled in green terrain. The selected indices (CSCX) and All Share Price Index (CASP) advanced by 50.2 points and 83.5 points respectively.