Dhaka stocks end week with marginal gains

The Dhaka bourse managed to end the week on a positive note as equity indices and turnover marginally edged higher on Thursday.

However, the share and unit prices of most companies remained unchanged as investors continued to look for quick gaining opportunities.

At the end of the day, DSE’s key index DSEX increased by 9 points or 0.15 percent to settle the day at 6,245.

Among other indices, the shariah-based DSES rose by 0.13 points and the blue-chip DS-30 was up by 2 points or 0.08 percent.

The DSE had a turnover of Tk 484.75 crore, which is Tk 35.39 crore more than the previous working day.

With this, points were added to the DSE index for three consecutive working days. Also, Thursday was the highest turnover in six working days.

Earlier, 15 working days ago, on November 9, above Tk 1,000 crore turnover took place on DSE. After three working days, the turnover was Tk 700 crore, but gradually it started going down.

On November 21, the turnover fell to Tk 300 crore. After three more days, Tk 300 crorewase traded. Of this, a minimum of Tk 323.80 crore was traded last Thursday (November 24), which is the lowest since April 4 last year.

Richard De Rosario, President of DSE Brokers Association said, “People have lost quite a lot in the correction of the last few days. Those who invested in margin loans were forced to sell their shares. Naturally, when there is a major decline, the buyers become to the market.”

Pointing out that this rise could have been more, he said, “The market did not rise as it needed to rise because of the floor price. Many are still on the sidelines.”

On this day, shares of the 318 companies traded on the day, of which 61 firms gained, 23 issues lost and 234 companies remained unchanged.

The pharmaceuticals and chemicals sector rose to the top position in terms of transactions. The total turnover in this sector was Tk 91.1 crore, which is 22.36 percent of the total turnover.

The IT sector was in the second position with Tk 82.24 crore turnover, followed by the miscellaneous sector at Tk 38.5 crore.

Shares of Bashundhara Paper Mills were the most-traded by value on the DSE as its shares worth Tk 24.57 crore were traded on the day.

Orion Pharma, which was the second most-traded stock, had a turnover of Tk 21.87 crore followed by Genex Infosys, E-Generation, Aamra Network, Advent Pharma, BSC, Orion Infusion, Navana Pharmaceuticals and Eastern Housing.

Meanwhile, the overall index CASPI of the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) increased 11 points to 18,419 and securities worth Tk 7.02 crore were traded on the day.