Despite falling for most of the trading sessions, Dhaka stocks continued to gain for the second consecutive week in the past week, as bargain hunters went for low-priced scrips by the start of the week after the recent corrections, market operators said.
DSEX, the key index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, gained 45.40 points, or 0.81 per cent over the past week to close at 5,661.05 points, after gaining 97.17 points in the previous week.
In the past 12 weeks, the market moved forward in only three weeks, including the past two weeks.
Market operators said that the prevailing uncertainties, stemming from economic and political factors, and the decision to impose circuit breaker limit by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Limited contributed to a subdued atmosphere, affecting investor confidence and engagement in the market.
The BSEC on April 24 restricted share price fall at maximum 3 per cent for all companies, but those which are still under floor price restriction.
Market operators said that multiple factors were working behind the prolonged bearish trend of the stocks, such as lack of investor confidence, increase in the lending rate, liquidity crisis in banks, crisis in foreign exchange reserves, sudden change of policies and ongoing global economic uncertainties.
Dhaka Stock Exchange operated on five trading sessions in the past week, among which two sessions witnessed gain, the other three sessions on May 7, 8, and 9 witnessed fall in the key index.
Out of the 393 issues traded in the past week, 240 advanced, 128 declined and 25 remained unchanged in the past week.
With the increase of the investors鈥� activity, the weekly turnover of DSE witnessed an increased, by 36.07 per cent to Tk聽4,802.72 crore in the past week compared with that of Tk聽2,823.73 crore in the previous week.
Investors were mostly active in pharmaceutical scrips, followed by textile, and engineering shares.
EBL Securities in its weekly market commentary said, 鈥楾he market recovery observed a major setback in the last two sessions of the week as investor sentiment hampered again, stemming from further tightening in money market conditions.鈥�
The DSE Shariah index increased by 10.14 points, or 0.82 per cent, to close at 1,242.57 points in the past week.
The DS30 index gained 7.38 points, or 0.37 per cent, to finish at 2,015.24 points.
Asiatic Laboratories topped the average weekly turnover chart with shares worth Tk聽37.82 crore daily changing hands.
Taufika Foods and Lovello Ice-cream, Orion Infusion, Best Holdings, Malek Spinning Mills, Golden Son, National Bank,聽Alif Industries, Orion Pharma and Far East Knitting & Dyeing Industries were the other turnover leaders.