Bourses end week lower as election nears

Stocks edged lower last week, after remaining flat in the previous week, as investors mostly followed cautious stance ahead of national election.

Market insiders said most of investors adopted a 'wait-and-see' policy as election nears while lower than expected earnings disclosures by a number of companies' prompted some investors to sell shares.

"Investors are closely eyeing the country's political situation while some opted for booking profit from stocks, taking the market in the red zone," said a leading broker.

The week featured five trading sessions as usual. Of them, three sessions closed lower while two managed to close higher.

Week-on-week, the DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 14.49 points or 0.28 per cent to settle the week at 5,244.

Two other indices-the DS30 index and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES)-also edged lower. The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 2.98 points to finish at 1,856 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 2.35 points to close at 1,208.

"The market optimism faded away as the cautious investors were closely observing the political situation ahead of national election," commented International Leasing Securities, in its weekly market analysis.

The stockbroker noted that some investors showed their buying interest on lucrative price levels in power, food, pharma, cement and bank sector stocks to recover the benchmark index from its bearish trend.

However, some investors reshuffled their portfolios on ongoing earnings declarations that failed to meet the investors' expectation, said the stockbroker.

Selling of shares from large-cap stocks particularly from telecom, engineering and financial institution sectors led the DSEX to close in red, it added.

Accordingly, telecommunication saw the highest loss of 2.40 per cent, followed by financial institutions 1.73 per cent, engineering 0.l7 per cent.

Power sector witnessed the highest gain of 3.68 per cent, followed by food with 0.59 per cent, pharmaceuticals 0.49 per cent and banking 0.13 per cent.

Total turnover, however, increased to Tk 27.65 billion on the DSE which was Tk 25.95 billion in the week before.

The daily turnover averaged Tk 5.53 billion, registering an increase 6.51 per cent over the previous week's average of Tk 5.19 billion.

The textile sector dominated the week's turnover chart, grabbing20 per cent of the week's total turnover. It was followed by the power with 16 per cent and pharmaceuticals 14 per cent.

The market capitalisation of the DSE advanced 0.03 per cent to Tk 3,813 billion, from Tk 3,813 billion in the week before.

Of the 347 traded issues, 186 closed lower, 143 ended higher and 18 issues remained unchanged on the DSE floor last week.

United Power topped the week's turnover chart with 4.48 million shares worth Tk 1.37 billion changing hands during the week.

The other turnover leaders were Khulna Power Company Tk 1.36 billion, SK Trims Industries Tk 1.12 billion, IFAD Autos Tk 7468 million and Saiham Cotton Mills Tk 728 million.

Sonali Aansh Industries was the week's best performer, posting a gain of 38.63 per cent with no price sensitive information.

Tosrifa Industries was the worst loser, losing 19.92 per cent.

The port city's bourse, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), also ended marginally lower with its CSE All Share Price Index - CASPI -shedding 46 points to settle at 16,055.

The Selective Categories Index - CSCX - also lost 24 points to close the week at 9,729.

A new issue-Kattali Textile- made its share trading debut last week. The new comer's share price jumped 144 per cent to close at Tk 24.40 on the first trading day on Monday at DSE.

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