DSE sees highest turnover in six months

The daily turnover of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) crossed Tk967 crore on Thursday, which was 26.4% higher than the previous day and the highest in the last six months. 

Thanks to the winning streak of nine consecutive sessions that engaged more investors to trigger their buy and sell decisions.

On 9 November last year, the DSE witnessed a daily turnover of Tk1,018 crore.

Stockbrokers said the market did open higher on Thursday, but a pressure to book some profits from the blue chip stocks – Olympic Industries, Unique Hotel, Sea Pearl Beach Resorts – pushed the blue-chip index DS30 down by 0.21% on Thursday.

However, the broad-based index DSEX managed to end the day in the green territory, riding on price appreciation of some large, mid and small-cap stocks with improved financial results, despite profit-booking pressures from risk-averse investors in recently rallied scrips.

DSEX was up by 0.12% to close at 6,274.

"Investors preferred to take positions in sector-specific issues with positive expectations from the upcoming earnings discourses," said EBL Securities in its daily market commentary.

However, sellers dominated the session as recent price appreciation of selective scrips has enticed investors to book profits and hold cash positions to take advantage of any prevailing short-term gain opportunities, it added.

On the sectoral front, food, banking and IT sectors contributed the highest 16.2%, 13.1% and 12.6% of the DSE turnover, respectively, on Thursday.

Most of the sectors displayed positive returns, out of which, jute, paper and IT led the gainers as their market capitalisations – increased by 4.9%, 2.6% and 1% in that order.

Travel and leisure, following the recent gains, led the correction with a 3.8% decline in the sector's market capitalisation in a day, followed by service and real estate, and tannery.

79 issues advanced, 62 declined in the DSE.

As investors were looking to take positions in some of the long oversold stocks at the floor prices, 144 scrips were trading above the floor during the closing bell on Thursday, up from 122 in the previous day.

However, 256 scrips in the DSE were still at the floor prices.