Stocks close with steady gains

Stocks registered a steady intraday gain on Tuesday as investors preferred some trending shares with hopes of a faster recovery whenever the market resumes trading.

DSEX, the broad-based index at the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) gained 1.35% on Tuesday following Monday's 0.45% increase, on its way to recovering recent losses.

Despite the fact that during trading hours investors assumed a weeklong shutdown of the bourses, many of them played strong unlike in the past.

EBL Securities wrote in its daily market commentary after the trading session that "the capital market sparked a rally today, beating worries of the forthcoming strict lockdown."

"Investors turned their focus on low-priced scrips in hopes of a prompt resurgence of the stock market in post-lockdown sessions, based on their earlier experience," it added.

Bangladesh has been going through a moderate lockdown since the first week of April. The government has again announced that, except for factories and emergency services, everything would have to be locked down for a period of seven days from 14 April.

The capital market regulator and the bourses had earlier announced a weeklong shutdown of trading after Tuesday. But the stock markets have again come back with partial trading hours with the government having decided to continue banking services during the stricter lockdown now.

However, with better investor better participation, the turnover has increased slightly by 3.57% to end at Tk511 crore at the DSE.

Hyped up insurance stocks dominated the turnover board with increasing investor participation.

General insurance contributed the highest maximum of 39.18% to the DSE's daily turnover. Miscellaneous and pharmaceuticals followed with slightly less than 10% each in the turnover.

Most sectors did reasonably well on Tuesday. Cement, jute, and general insurance generated the most returns over the session: around 3% each.

Only the travel and leisure sector saw a minor 0.1% correction.

Of the 347 issues traded at the DSE, 228 advanced, 63 declined, and 56 remained unchanged.

The port city bourse, CSE, also settled in the green.