Stocks return in the black riding on pharma

After a shocking plunge for many constant trading sessions, Dhaka stocks returned to the green territory on Wednesday as bargain hunters’ confidence restored to a large extent, helping the market find a way out of the bearish trend.

The market became upbeat mainly riding on investors’ increasing buying spree who were seeking bargain hunting scopes ahead of the year-end, taking advantage of the low-priced scrips due to recent market corrections.

Investors were mainly involved in the pharma stocks as the sector registered the most trading with contributing as much as 35 per cent to the turnover of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), the country’s prime bourse.

The DSEX, the broad index of the DSE, added 15.54 points or 0.25 per cent to settle at 6,195 against 6,180 points in the previous trading session.

Among other indices, the DSES, the Shariah-based index, edged up 3.35 points or 0.24 per cent to close at 1,355, and the DS30, blue-chip index, went up 2.75 points or 0.12 per cent to finish at 2,194.

The premier bourse, however, witnessed a slight decrease in participation with turnover declining by 4.2 per cent to Tk 258 crore against the tally of Tk 269 crore in the previous session.

Trading activities on the floor remained sluggish till mid-session, but the late session’s buying binge on selective issues pushed the core index near the 6,200-mark, said EBL Securities, a stockbroker, in its daily market review.

Meanwhile, the 1 per cent lower circuit breaker for certain scrips provided a cushion to the ailing stocks, it added.

The market turnover, however, was yet to rebound across the bourse as cautious investors were taking a wait-and-see approach amid the gloomy outlook of the market owing to the prevailing macroeconomic adversities, EBL Securities stated.

The pharma & chemicals sectors topped the turnover chart with a contribution of 34.5 per cent, followed by the bank (7.3 per cent) and the IT (6.8 per cent).

Most of the sectors displayed positive returns at the DSE with the services posting the highest gain of 2.5 per cent, followed by paper (2.2 per cent) and IT (2.2 per cent).

On the other hand, the mutual fund sector suffered the most with a loss of 0.1 per cent, followed by textile (0.1 per cent).

Out of the issues traded, 74 securities advanced, 91 scrips declined, and 226 stocks did not see any price movement on the DSE trading floor.

The port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also closed higher yesterday with its two major indices – the selected indices (CSCX) and the all-share price index (CASPI) – adding by 9.8 points and 15.1 points respectively.