Stocks start fresh week with bearish sentiment

Stocks start a fresh week today amid bearish sentiment that continued to hit stocks for the third consecutive week, as investors remained jittery over the latest political developments.

The week that ended Thursday saw five trading sessions. Out of which, market lost first two sessions and ended flat in the following sessions.

Amid volatility throughout the week, the DSEX, the main gauge of the market, shed 40.6 points or 1% to 4,078. The blue chip index DS30 was down 36 points or 2.4% to 1,509.

The Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also ended lower with its benchmark Selective Category Index lost over 94 points or 1% to close at 7,933.

Like previous weeks, lacklustre trading activities continued in the past week.

The average daily turnover stood at Tk4.8bn, down 0.95% over the previous week’s average of Tk4.9bn.

“With the repetition of opening hype and eventually slowing down amid on-going political developments fostered market sentiment to remain volatile over the week,” said IDLC Investments in its weekly market analysis.

It said investment outlook stayed bleak over rising potential political warm-up as fear grew strong among investment community, keeping market participation indolent.

Investors were pursuing their ‘watchful’ tendency over future directions, it said.

Profit-taking in large-cap scrips against positioning in micro-cap and mini-cap scrips created a countercyclical effect almost throughout the week.

Having no surprises in apparently eased up political front, market sentiment remained largely unchanged and made DSEX to remain below 4,100 points level.

“The market is hovering within a band of 90 points for the last ten trading days, indicating a strong consolidation before taking a definite direction,” said Lanka Bangla Securities.

The gainers took a marginal lead over the losers as out of 296 issues traded during the week on DSE, 151 advanced, 132 declined and 13 remained unchanged.

Textile sector dominated the trading in the past week, making up 16.5% of the turnover. It was followed by pharmaceutical and fuel & power sectors, accounting for more than 13% and 10% respectively of total DSE turnover.

All the major sectors ended in red in the past week.

Telecommunications lost the highest 7.6%, pulled down by heavyweight Grameenphone and Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company, which declined 7.4% and 8.9% respectively.

The sector was followed by non-banking financial institutions that declined 4.6%, banks 2.7% and fuel and power 1.5%.

Pharmaceuticals, Tannery, textile, food and allied, and cement sectors performed well in the past week.

Grameenphone became the week’s top turnover leader with shares worth Tk1.2bn changing hands, followed by Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd, RN Spinning and Heidelberg Cement.