DSEX exceeds post-election peak

Dhaka and Chattogram stocks are in a strong positive trend riding on confidence, easy money and, to some extent, an earnings surprise. 

DSEX, the major index at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), charged up 101 points or 1.72% to close at 5,986, the highest since 15 February 2018. 

In recent years, the market began to suffer due to a serious liquidity crisis in the money market at the beginning of 2018. 

Since then it has come through several peaks and troughs, retesting the 5,970-mark twice – once during the post-election rally in January 2019 and again in January 2021 when the market was healing from the pandemic shocks over the first half of 2020. 

Now the index seems to have sustained above the psychologically important mark at the closing session on Thursday.  

Analysts thanked the existing positive vibe that supported the upward drive amid a very liquid money market with interest rates declining significantly on top of a better than expected economic performance. 

They observe easy money tends to chase capital market assets as investors' hunger for better-return assets increases.  

The large-capitalised banking sector led the rally now as hyped-up investors engaged in a buying rush, said EBL Securities. 

Confidence in the market reached new heights; as a result, participation on the bourses reached a four-month high. 

Daily turnover on the DSE has increased by 17.36% on Thursday to Tk2,369 crore. 

Banking stocks, near to their decade-long trough, are now trending and contributed to more than one-fourth of the day's trading turnover. 

General insurance and textile stocks followed banks in the sectoral turnover table. 

Most of the sectors observed persuasive performance, out of which Life Insurance gained by 6.2% on Thursday, followed by banks with 4.5% gains on average. 

On the other hand, Jute led the sectoral correction table by losing 1.8% of their market capitalisation. Paper and printing, services, food, tannery, engineering, non-bank financial institutions, and miscellaneous were the sectors to close in red territory.    

Remarkably, DSE's total market capitalisation crossed Tk5 lakh crore marks on Thursday for the second time in its history. 

Earlier on January 14, the premier bourse registered the total market capitalisation of the scrips it hosts to go above the Tk5 lakh crore mark. 

Previously, DSE market capitalisation had peaked to nearly Tk3.7 lakh crore in December 2010 and dropped below Tk2.3 lakh crore following the market crash then.  

Out of the 364 issues traded on Thursday, 163 advanced, 143 declined, and 58 remained unchanged. 

Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) also registered a similar positive movement with its broad-based index CSCX closing at 10,455, 168 points up from the previous close. 

Turnover on the port city bourse was still above Tk100 crore, though it declined by Tk45 crore from Wednesday.