Sell pressure pulls stocks down

Country’s both the bourses, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) and Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE)- closed today extending downbeat as shaky investors continued their sell-offs on major sectors issues fearing a further fall in prices.

DSE witnessed another nosedive in its benchmark index today amid choppy trading. Following the previous session’s major decline, DSE opened on a negative note which continued till the closure.

The risk-averse investors continued their heavy sell offs on major sectors as experts cautioned about the second wave of Covid-19 which may hit Bangladesh in winter.

The bargain hunters, however, tried to upturn the index during the mid-session but active presence of the wobbly investors pushed down the DSEX.

The broad index, DSEX settled at 4809.70 points on Monday with a loss of 48.65 points or 1.00 percent.

Besides, two selective indices, Blue Chip index, DSE30 and Shariah index, DSES also went down by 10.10 points and 2.39 points to settle at 1637.49 points and 1096.24 points respectively.

On the DSE trading floor, a total number of 156,753 trades were executed in today’s trading session with a trading volume of 314.10 million securities.

DSE’s turnover, a crucial indicator of the market, plunged by 20.6 percent over last session as the investors preferred sideline in making investment. The turnover stood at Taka 6.94 billion from Taka 8.75 billion in the previous session.

Losers took lead over gainers as out of 354 issues traded, 56 securities gained price while 238 declined and 60 remained unchanged.

The market-cap of DSE decreased to Taka 3,926 billion which was Taka 3,971 billion in the previous session.

General insurance sector dominated the turnover board with 33 percent of total turnover while top loser lists were comprised of general insurance stocks, according to a market analyst, International Leasing Securities Limited (ILSL).

It said major sectors witnessed correction today. Among the major sectors – general insurance (- 9.0%), mutual fund (-7.2%), and engineering (-5.1%) sectors witnessed price correction while telecom (0.5%) and jute (0.1%) sectors achieved price appreciation.

The investors’ activity was mostly centered on general insurance (32.6%), mutual fund (11.3%) and textile (8.4%) sectors while East Land (3.3%), Brac Bank (3.3%) and Sandhan Insurance (2.8%) led the scrip wise turnover board, added ILSL.

Eastland Insurance topped the turnover chart followed by Sandhani Life Insurance, Beximco Limited, Brac Bank, Continental Insurance, Beximco Pharma, FBFIF, BD Finance, Walton Hi-Tech and Rupali Insurance.

The top 10 gainers were National Feed Mill, Yeakin Polymer, Envoy Textile, BD Lamps, Khan Brothers PP, Union Capital, Padma Oil, Pacific Denims, Amra Technology and Tasrifa Industries.

The top ten losers were Sonar Bangla Insurance, Global Insurance, Asia Insurance, Phoenix Insurance, Northern Insurance, Express Insurance, Karnaphuli Insurance, Nitol Insurance, SEML Lecture Equity Management Fund and Pravati Insurance.

On the other hand, port city bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also closed in red maintaining trend of previous session.

Selective categories index, CSCX and all shares price index, CASPI declined by 77.79 points and 133.27 points to stand at 8259.40 points and 13747.30 points respectively.

At CSE, a total of 12,137,695 share and mutual funds of 271 companies were traded, of which 48 issues advanced while 184 declined and 39 issues remained unchanged.