Stocks keep advancing for 2nd day

Dhaka Stocks continued to advance for the second consecutive day on Wednesday as investors kept pouring funds in selective large-cap stocks that recently broke out of their floor prices.

Investors especially the cautious investors in the past few sessions had gone for short-term profit gains, but they were now adding blue-chips and large-cap securities to their portfolios in hope of long-term gains, stockbrokers and analysts said.

The DSEX, the benchmark index of the premier bourse Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), added 5.5 points or 0.09 per cent to settle at 6,279 against 6,273 in the previous trading session.

Turnover, another crucial market indicator, however, declined by 13.2 per cent to Tk 721 crore, against the tally of TK 831 crore in the previous session.

Due to the price appreciation of most of blue chips and large cap scrips, many investors opted to book short-term gains yesterday, according to stockbrokers.

Large-cap stocks, however, were still demand because of their healthy earnings in the immediate past quarter, analysts said.

The market experienced volatility during the mid-session due to the continuation of profit booking and portfolio rebalancing by cautious investors amid recent macroeconomic concerns, said EBL Securities, in its daily market review.

But, the earnings recovery of major companies in the latest quarter bolstered confidence among investors, which triggered increased market participation, helping the core index stay afloat yesterday, it added.

The IT sector topped the turnover chart with a contribution of 16.4 per cent of the total turnover of the DSE, followed by food (10.3 per cent) and fuel (9.5 per cent).

Most sectors displayed mixed returns at the premier bourse, with the jute displaying the highest gain of 1.3 per cent, followed by tannery (1.0 per cent) and textile (0.8 per cent).

On the other hand, the services suffered the most with a loss of 1.2 per cent, followed by IT (1.0 per cent) and travel (0.8 per cent).