Indices march ahead amid slight fall in turnover

Stock indices at Bangladesh bourses closed green on Monday following its recent rally for 14 working days.

But, investors' participation in trading dropped by 2.4% to below Tk1,000 crore after that crossed the mark on Sunday.

The market showed an increased appetite for selective large-cap trusted stocks amid a year-end optimism, said EBL Securities Research in its daily market recap.

DSEX, the broad-based index at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), closed at 5,147 points yielding a 0.4% gain, while blue-chip index DS30 gained 0.8% and Shairah index DSES gained more than 1%.

Corrections in average securities were evident as 166 lost price against gains of 122 while price of 70 scrips remained unchanged.

Jute, pharmaceuticals, general insurance, and telecom stocks registered more than 1% gains in market capitalisation on average, while miscellaneous, mutual funds life insurance, food, and IT sectors generated positive returns of less than 1%.

Services, engineering, cement, textile, paper, tannery, financial institutions, bank, travel, and energy sectors closed in the red.

Day's turnover was mostly the contribution of general insurance, pharmaceuticals, engineering, bank, miscellaneous, textile stocks.

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also witnessed a positive trend in its indices with a 114% increase in turnover.

The stock market is in a rally for the last three weeks, with the DSEX coming up to 5,147 points from below 4,800 points.

Market building moves from the regulator, such as quality initial public offering approvals, bond trading, and disciplinary actions enticed investors' participation while improvements of the country's economic activities boosted much-needed confidence in the capital market, said EBL Securities Analysts.