BBN file photo

Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)– Bangladesh’s stocks slipped into the red on Wednesday, after a single-day break, with turnover hitting fresh three months low.

Investors’ low confidence to the market amid ongoing pessimism coupled with liquidity crunch and lack of market triggers kept investors mostly inactive, according to market operators.

The market opened on positive note and the prime index gained about 18 points within first 15 minutes of trading. But rest of the session went down steadily.

At the end of the session, DSEX, the prime index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), went down by 27.58 points or 0.49 per cent to settle at nearly three months low at 5,502.

Two other indices—the DS30 index and the DSE Shariah Index (DSES)–also ended lower.

The DS30 index, comprising blue chips, fell 11.32 points to finish at 1,968 and the DSE Shariah Index lost 4.59 points to close at 1,281.

Turnover came down to BDT 3.53 billion, which was 8.31 per cent lower than the previous session’s turnover of BDT 3.85 billion.

A total number of 101,534 trades were executed in the day’s trading session with trading volume of 64.80 million shares and mutual fund units.

The market-cap of the DSE also declined to BDT 4,121 billion, from BDT 4,137 billion in the previous day.

The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 347 issues traded, 165 closed lower, 121 ended higher and 61 issues remained unchanged on the DSE trading floor.

BATBC topped the turnover chart with shares worth BDT 267 million changing hands, closely followed by Monno Ceramic, Square Pharmaceuticals, Singer Bangladesh and Grameenphone (GP).

Monno Ceramic was the day’s best performer, posting a gain of 8.15 per cent while Vanguard AML BD Finance Mutual Fund One was the day’s worst loser, losing 6.57 per cent.

On the other hand, Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE), ended lower with the CSE All Share Price Index – CASPI – losing 38 points to settle at 16,858 while the Selective Categories Index – CSCX, shedding 25 points to finish at 10,212.

Here too, the losers beat the gainers as 104 issues closed lower, 82 ended higher and 32 remained unchanged.
The country’s port city bourse traded 5.51 million shares and mutual fund units worth BDT 237 million in turnover.

BBN/SSR/AD