Share prices in the country’s two stock markets plunged further on Tuesday, extending a downturn to the fourth straight session that began at the last trading day of the past week.
Power stocks lost most on the day due to nervy trade during early trading hours, but blue-chip securities showed strong grip on their current value as market regained some strength before close.
The DSEX of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) fell 24.16 points to drag down the broader index below the 4800 point mark, intensifying the psychological pressure on investors who were mostly on the selling side.
Analysts had been in the opinion that the secondary market would see higher selling this month as many of the investors would be cashing in their securities to reinvest in the coming primary shares of two major companies. Slack demand side, however, left little room for sellers for booking profit though many opted repositioning and sold out their old securities at marginal gains.
The demand-supply mismatch caused price fall across the board and decline in the daily transaction that eventually brought all the market indicators down. On DSE, prices of 191 issues were down against 92 advancing securities.
The high number of losing issues cut the DSEX to 4791.47, the blue-chip DS30 to 1859.48 and the Shariah DSES to 1184.11 when the daily trade value fell to Taka 546.97 crore and the volume to 13.21 crore shares from Monday’s Taka 15.36 crore shares worth Taka 660 crore.
Some securities from engineering, jute, pharma and energy sectors closed considerably higher amidst the dull trading, with Northern Jute, 7th ICB, Anwar Galvanizing, Monno Stafflers and National Tubes gaining most. The major lagging shares were of the 4thICB, Stylecraft, BD Welding, Asian Tiger and Key & Que.
UPGDCL maintained its top position among the market leaders followed by Islami Bank, Far Chemical, Squire Pharma and CVO Petrochemical.
Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) was also down on Tuesday, with its major CSCX price index losing over 58 point to close at 8949.34.
Out of the day’s 259 issues traded, 157 suffered loss and 75 closed higher. The daily trade value was Taka 38.18 crore for 1.06 crore shares.
