Stocks end the volatile week lower
The index did jumpstart the morning on Thursday to hit above 6,382 points, but sellers did not allow it to sustain there
Following the previous week's pause, Dhaka and Chattogram stocks returned to the losing streak last week.
The good news of the government's initial deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for $4.5 billion loans failed to pave the way for stock indices to recover the week-long losses as investors preferred profit booking.
It instead merely helped arrest the downturn at the last session of the week as DSEX, the broad-based index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), closed 0.06% higher at 6,353 points.
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Analysts said the situation is foggy to them as one development in the economic front comes to increase investors' confidence is also being tagged with some challenges for the economy, companies and the overall stock market and the volatile market behaviour is a reflection of that.
Corporate earnings are a worry for serious investors, while the building-up pressure on the central bank to allow deposit and lending rate hikes in the coming days is making short-term stock traders cautious.
The index did jumpstart the morning on Thursday to hit above 6,382 points, but sellers did not allow it to sustain there.
In the last week, DSEX dropped by 0.89% with the daily average turnover increasing by 6.4% to Tk1,164 crore.
Only 34 DSE scrips advanced last week compared to the closing price of the previous week, while 129 declined and 223 remained unchanged mostly because of the floor price.
The IT sector dominated the turnover table as the listed IT firms attracted short-term investors' attention while most other manufacturing and service sector firms are facing the stress of the high inflation and costs that result in a profitability deterioration.
Despite Thursday's sharp correction following the recent gains, the IT sector's market capitalisation increased by 2.5% in the DSE.
Paper and printing, cement, services and real estate, banking and telecommunication sectors also inched up in the DSE last week.
On the other hand, travel and leisure, general insurance, jute, tannery, ceramics, life insurance, miscellaneous, fuel and power, engineering, textile, non-bank financial institutions, pharmaceuticals, food and allied sectors faced declines in their respective market capitalisation.
The average price-to-earnings ratio in the DSE came down to 14.79, from 14.85 a week ago. The lower the ratio is the cheaper the stock market is considered to be.
