BSS, Dhaka :
Stock market finished the week Thursday flat as investors apparently became frustrated over big sell-off plan by an institutional investor and announcement of lower dividend by some listed companies.
Bangladesh Shilpa Bank, one of the corporate sponsors/directors of Prime Textile on Thursday expressed its intention to sell its entire holding of 8,50,000 shares.
Two other nominated directors of this textile company, however, wanted to buy 85,000 shares at prevailing price at the ‘block market’.
The big sell-off plan and low-level response from buyers pulled the share price of this company 1.68 percent down to Taka 23.40 at close.
Two banks declared dividend on Thursday, which was far below the investors’ expectation. Bank Asia declared 10 percent stock dividend when the United Commercial Bank (UCB) recommended 5.0 percent cash and 10 percent stock dividend for 2013.
The lower than expected level of dividends drove share prices of these two banking issues down by 1.53 percent and 2.09 percent respectively.
This downward trend was significantly visible in other traded issues on the day when 132 companies ended the day in red. Shares of 124 companies managed to finish positive with moderate gains when 32 issues traded at their previous day’s closing prices.
Reliance Insurance suffered over 17 percent loss on ex-dividend trading at the week’s close after announcing 15 percent cash and 15 percent stock dividends last month.
Other major losers of the day were from jute, pharmaceuticals, petroleum and IT sectors. Among the day’s major advanced issues were from insurance, engineering, ceramic and textile sectors.
Some stockbrokers said the distressed investors got more tight hands in speculation whether they would get generous dividends or good return from profit-taking selling in the coming days.
