Stocks snap rally on profit-booking

Dhaka stocks witnessed a volatile session on Tuesday, with the benchmark index shedding some gains accumulated in the previous fourth consecutive session.

The market opened on a positive note in the morning, but retracted from the mid-session, succumbing to profit-booking later in the day.

Selling activity was mainly observed in banks, cement, IT and textile sectors. Yet, engineering, telecom, insurance, mutual funds and jute sector stocks largely remained unharmed while non-banking financial institutions, food, energy and pharmaceuticals sectors ended mixed.

The benchmark DSEX index gathered over 34 points soon after the commencement of the session, touching its intraday high at 5,181. However, failing to hold on to gains, it slipped to its intraday low at 5,120. The index finally settled lower by over 15 points at 5,123.

Among other indices, the DSES index lost almost 7 points or 0.58 percent at 1,185 and blue-chip DS30 index shed 7 points or 0.39 percent at 1,806.

The overall market volumes remained almost static, as the turnover stood at Tk 972 crore, slightly down from Tk 979 crore seen in the previous session.

Out of 356 issues traded, 125 advanced, 158 declined and 73 remained unchanged.

Beximco Pharmaceuticals—the country’s giant drug maker of Beximco Group was the most traded stock, unsetting Beximco Ltd. The two companies of the same group dominated the trading for long since the news that Beximco will import doses of the coronavirus vaccine from abroad.

CAPM IBBL Mutual Fund was the top gainer rising 10 percent, followed by Bangladesh National Insurance Company.

JMI Syringe rallied more than 8 percent, making it third top gainer after the news Indonesia will import 1.5 crore syringes from JMI Syringes and Medical Devices Limited for.

The top losers included Tung Hai Knitting and Dyeing, Heidelberg Cement, Unilever Consumer Care, Daffodil Computer, Reckitt Benckiser and Tallu Spinning.