Stocks suffering for economic uncertainty

The key index of the premier bourse Dhaka Stock Exchange, known as DSEX, saw a downward trend on Tuesday, closing in red and losing 11.6 points, or 0.19%, to settle at 6,232 points, compared to the previous trading session's 6,244 points.

The dip in the stock market was primarily due to investors' tendency to profit booking and opportunists continuing to rebalance their portfolios in search of selective issues with short-term gains.

The market began steadily but could not maintain momentum due to sell pressure, causing the core index to fall into the negative.

DS30, the blue-chip index and the Shariah-based index DSES also saw reductions of 0.26 per cent and 0.35 per cent respectively, with both closing at 2,217.68 and 1,355.16 points.

The premier bourse witnessed a significant rise in turnover, surging 24.78 per cent to Tk 564 crore. The IT sector became the top performer contributing 18.31 per cent to the overall turnover.

According to a daily market review by EBL Securities, investors were more interested in making quick profits rather than investing in equities for the long-term. This is due to the lack of consistency in the market caused by inflationary pressures in the economy and other macroeconomic challenges.

Among the various sectors, IT issues had the highest turnover of 20 per cent, followed by life insurance and pharmaceuticals with 16.6 per cent and 15.9 per cent respectively.

Despite the overall uptick in buying interest, most sectors reported mixed returns. The sectors that recorded the most positive returns were life insurance, general insurance, and tannery stocks. Whereas the food & allied, bank, fuel & power, pharmaceutical, engineering, and telecom sectors experienced losses.

In particular, the general insurance, jute, and IT sectors displayed the most corrections with negative returns of 0.9 per cent, 0.8 per cent, and 0.7 percent respectively. On the other hand, the travel, telecom, and life insurance sectors exhibited slightly positive returns of 0.7per cent, 0.6per cent, and 0.2 per cent respectively.

On the DSE trading floor, out of the 391 issues traded, 31 advanced, 102 declined, and 258 remained unchanged.