DSE turnover drops 17%, indices end flat

The turnover on the Dhaka bourse fell slightly on Monday after hitting almost a year-high the previous day.

At the end of Monday’s trading, turnover on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) stood at Tk 1,744.87 crore, which was Tk 360.27 crore or 17.11 percent less than the previous session.

A merchant banker said the high turnover in recent days is due to some funds coming in from outside, guiding the market towards positive territory.

However, the baker said, “It’s not unusual to see a little less trading today than yesterday.”

“It appears that the share price is quite a bit higher than the floor price resulting in better profits. Because of this, the funds that remained idle for a long time have been released,” he added.

“For example, those who were in pharmaceuticals are selling their shares and moving to the textiles sector. And those who are thinking about investing for a longer term are shifting to banks. Thus, there is a movement in the market,” he added.

On Monday, shares and unit prices of most companies fell, but the price index increased. Through this, the stock market remained upward for nine sessions in the last 10 working days.

In early trading, the DSE started trading by increasing the price of shares and units of most companies. As a result, DSE’s main price index rose by 33 points after four minutes of trading.

After 47 minutes of trading, the DSEX turned negative. But in a short period of time, the index returned to the big rise again. At one point, DSEX rose 40 points over the previous day.

However, at the end of the transaction, the selling pressure increased and reduced the upward trend of the price index. Along with that, the list of price hikes was also short.

At the end of the day, DSEX, the benchmark index of DSE, increased over 6 points or 0.09 percent to settle the day at 6,407.

Among other indices, the shariah-based DSES rose by 2.93 points or 0.21 percent and the blue-chip DS-30 was up by 4.34 points or 0.19 percent.

The textile sector rose to the top position again in terms of transactions. The total turnover in this sector was Tk 294.6 crore, which is 17.33 percent of the total turnover.

The miscellaneous sector was at the second position with Tk 199.9 crore turnover, followed by engineering sector at Tk 181.9 crore.

Shares of the 382 companies were traded on the day, of which 123 firms gained, 188 issues lost and 71 companies remained unchanged.

Shares of Beximco Limited were the most-traded by value on the DSE as its shares worth Tk 84.95 crore were traded on the day.

BSC, which was the second most-traded stock, had a turnover of Tk 67.29 crore followed by Fortune Shoes, Orion Pharma, IPDC Finance, Sonali Paper, Delta Life, Malek Spinning, Olympic Industries and BSS.

Meanwhile, the overall index CASPI of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) increased over 5 points to 18,829 and securities worth Tk 42.02 crore were traded on the day.