Stocks keep sinking for 5th session

Dhaka stocks continued to bleed for the fifth consecutive session on Tuesday as investors’ confidence remained somber due to the absence of any positive forecasts regarding the rebound of the market. The prolonged bearish sentiment in the market frayed investors’ nerves, prompting them to liquidate their holdings aiming to protect their funds from the ailing market, analysts say.

The DSES, the benchmark index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), plunged 12.48 points or 0.20 per cent to close at 6,226 against 6,239 points in the previous trading session.

Among other indices, the DSES, the Shariah-based index, shed 3.50 points or 0.25 per cent to settle at 1,363, and the DS30, the blue-chip index, went down 2.31 points or 0.105 per cent to finish the session at 2,199.

Meanwhile, the Dhaka bourse witnessed a significant slump in participation with the turnover declining by 29.4 per cent to Tk 322 crore against the tally of Tk 456 crore in the previous session.

Out of the 381 issues traded, 14 stocks advanced, 65 issues declined, and 312 scrips did not see any movement on the DSE trading floor.

This situation refers to that almost 82 per cent of the traded issues remained stuck at their floor prices yesterday due to the absence of any buyers.

Moreover, many blue-chip stocks have been stuck at their floor prices for a long time, a prime reason making investors averse to take fresh bets, analysts comment, consequently extending the worries of the market.

Investors were still anticipating to a bleak outlook of the market as there had been no significant improvement of the macroeconomic situation, while dismal performance forecasts of the majority of the companies were putting further strain on the protracted pessimism in the market, said EBL Securities, a stockbroker, in its daily market review. The pharma & chemicals sectors topped the turnover chart with a contribution of 19.3 per cent, followed by the engineering (16.1 per cent) and the IT (9.8 per cent).

Most of the sectors displayed dismal returns at the premier bourse with the jute sector suffering the most with a loss of 5.5 per cent, followed by tannery (1.3 per cent) and paper (1.2 per cent).

On the other hand, the travel sector posted the highest gain of 0.5 per cent, followed by life insurance (0.3 per cent) and ceramic (0.2 per cent).

The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also settled on red terrain on Tuesday with its two major indices – the selected indices (CSCX), and the all share price index (CASPI) – declining by 12 points and 20.2 points respectively.