BSS, Dhaka :
With maintaining near 5000-point position for the fourth trading sessions, the benchmark price index of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) finished Wednesday, consolidating strength at a new resistance level.
The closing at 4979.72 of the DSEX raised the expectation that the index would march past 5000 points to finish the week on Thursday if investors remain busy in active transaction instead of pinning at profit booking. The broader index hit 5016 points at intra-session before losing some steam to settle below 5000-point mark.
The solid strength in the general index was evenly reflected in the two other selective market barometers. Resultantly, the Shariah DSES, which finished Tuesday in red, returned to the green zone with over 14 points rise to finish at 1162.58. The blue-chip DS30 also firmed up by nearly 33 points to end at 1924.22.
The daily trade value, which surged over Taka 1000-crore mark on Tuesday, inched down to Taka 932.88 crore. Accordingly, the trade volume fell to 21 crore shares, which rocketed to 2-year high of 27.51 crore shares on the previous day.
The rally in the indices was driven by the investors’ expectation of long run stability of the market supported by the main economic front, which had been showing continuous strength in the recent days on constant growth in remittance and export coupled with strong domestic demand.
The day started with rally on financial stocks, but the investors finally took greater position in manufacturing sector, which piloted the day in green despite price fall in 161 issues out of 302 traded ones. The majority of 126 scrips on low tide were also from large-cap group. It seems mutual fund got good response from investors with 22 scrips advancing among the day’s total 121 gainers.
Cement sector gave the highest return with a record 7.0 percent gain in market capitalization followed by engineering with 3.2 percent and oil stocks by 0.7 percent when banking sector fell by 2.1 percent.
The new issue, RSRM Steel topped the turnover leader in value. The other major gainers of the day were National House Finance, Shurwid Industries, Summit Alliance and Safko Spinning.
The major losing issues were Asia Pacific Insurance, Standard Insurance, Zeal Bangla Sugar, Provati Insurance and First Lease Finance.
