UNB, Dhaka :
The key share price index of the country’s premier bourse, Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), gained marginally this week after having a robust last week.
The DSE benchmark index, DSEX reached 4753.17 points on Thursday from 4702.66 points on Sunday (Jan 26).
The first day of the week (Sunday) witnessed winning streak for fourth consecutive trading sessions with turnover hitting a new 2-month high of Tk 859 crore at the DSE, riding on heavyweight banking stocks.
On Monday, the DSEX went down by 6.75 points as stocks faced slight correction with turnover dropping significantly, as investors were happy with marginal profit.
Stocks edged lower for the second running session on Tuesday with turnover going below Tk 600 crore. The DSEX went down by 45.07 points from previous session.
The DSEX completed its first year at the DSE since its launch on January 28, 2013 and marked a staggering 16 percent gain over the period.
But the DSE returned to the green on Wednesday with slight improvement in turnover as investors went for buying large cap stocks amid optimism. At the end of the session, the DSEX went up by 41.97 points.
On Thursday, the DSE turnover crossed Tk 800 crore as investors went for profit booking where DSEX gained 36 points.
Although the DSEX margin gained, total turnover and daily average of the market lost its last week’s pace.
The total turnover of this week was Tk 3609.34 crore as against Tk 3698.33 crore in the last week, which means a decline of 2.41 percent.
The daily average turnover at the DSE was Tk 721.86 crore in the outgoing week as it was Tk 739.66 crore in the last week.
Of the traded 301 issues in both weeks, prices of 140 shares increased this week while the prices of 217 shares had increased in the last week.
The number of shares that lost their prices this week was 146 while this number was 74 last week.
Market capitalization on the last trading day of this week was 2,875,711,285,295 whereas it was 2,859,600,093,535 on the opening day of the week, Sunday (Jan 26).
Market insiders are blaming the cautious monetary policy for the marginal gain and comparatively poor turnover than the previous week.
Bangladesh Bank on January 27 has announced the monetary policy for the second half of the current fiscal, which the governor has described as cautious and investment-friendly simultaneously.
The policy for the second half of the 2013-14 fiscal does not appear to be dramatically different from the one for the first half.
Private sector credit flow growth has been kept at the previous rate of 16.5 percent, while the broad money growth projection remains at 17 percent.
However, the public sector credit flow growth has been pegged at 22.9 percent, up from the previous 19.5 percent.
While announcing the monetary policy, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman said that the GDP growth rate would be in the region of six percent if there are no major debacles in the remaining months of the fiscal.
The recently announced monetary policy aims to contain inflation within seven percent.
