Stocks extend gains to 5th session

Dhaka stocks extended their year-end rally on Tuesday, as vaccination hopes continued to lift sentiment.

After the choppy movement due to profit-booking mainly on banking, life insurers and ceramic stocks, the key index landed in the positive terrain backed by buying bout of general insurance, NBFI and telecom stocks.

The DSEX rose 14 points or 0.26 percent at 5,358, extending the rally for the fifth consecutive session and scaling a new 17-month high.

Other indices, the DSES climbed almost 2 points or 0.14 percent to 1,233 and blue-chip DS30 added 12 points or 0.14 percent to 1,936.

Bangladesh is expected to kick off Covid-19 vaccination in January. The country has already inked an agreement to get 30 million doses of the Oxford vaccine from India's Serum Institute.

All heads turned towards Robi’s IPO and its stellar run post listing, which can be attributed to over exuberance. It continued to climb as shares of the largest IPO ever were frozen at 10 percent upper circuit to Tk 27.1 a share on the DSE on its fourth trading day.

Turnover increased by 2.74 percent to Tk 1384 crore from the previous session’s Tk 1347 crore, supported by general insurers, NBFs, pharmaceuticals and engineering sectors, which together accounted for almost half of the total transaction.

The expectation of rolling out vaccination by next month has sent a positive signal to the market, but profit-booking cannot be ruled out from a long rally market, said an investment analyst.

The market experienced see-saw trading due to quick profit-booking, as the indices hit record highs, he added.

Beximco Ltd—the flagship company of the Beximco Group—topped the turnover leader's list, followed by Beximco Pharmaceuticals, IFIC Bank, Lanka Bangla Finance, BD Finance, SS Steel and Lafarge Holcim Bangladesh Ltd.