FE Report

Dhaka stocks dropped on profit taking in the volatile market Monday, after a four-day record-breaking run.

Analysts said that profit-taking dragged the market into the red. Investors offloaded shares of almost every sector, including financial institutions, mutual funds, insurance and energy scrips.

However, stocks of IT companies and leading industrial conglomerate Beximco Group nudged up.

The market lost 28 points in the first half hour of trading, but then picked up again and DGEN reached at 3269. Profit booking, however, caused the market to fall thereafter, and the downtrend continued till the end of the trading session.

The benchmark Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) General Index (DGEN) declined by 22.67 points or 0.69 per cent to 3236.97.

The broader DSE All Shares Price Index (DSI) lost 22.43 points or 0.82 per cent to 2711.38 and the DSE-20 blue chip index dipped by 16.82 points or 0.73 per cent to 2261.90.

"After recent sharp gains, I think the market has managed the inevitable profit taking very well," said Sheikh Mortuza Ahmed, head of merchant banking division of the Prime Bank Ltd.

"It is not untoward for the market to take a breath and have a temporary pause before regaining strength to go up," he added.

Losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 243 issues traded, 80 went into the green zone, 160 into the red and three remained unchanged.

The turnover figure had declined to Tk 8.0 billion, a decrease of 22.7 per cent from the second biggest of Tk 10.34 billion.

After a long time, Bextex, the textile arm of the Beximco Group, was the top turnover leader with shares worth Tk 671.77 million traded. Its flagship company Beximco Ltd came out second with shares worth Tk 352.94 million changing hands.

Titas Gas, Jamuna Oil Company, Navana CNG, Maksons Spinning, Aftab Automobiles, Keya Cosmetics, BD Computers and Beximco Synthetic were the other turnover leaders.

Information Services Network ( ISN) Ltd, a leading IT company, had the largest gainer with registering a rise of 14.84 per cent.

Sonargaon Textiles, In Tech Online (INTECH) Ltd, Rangpur Foundry, Beach Hatchery, Legacy Footwear, Desh Garments, BD Computers, Bangla Process and Bextex were the other top gainers.

The day's top losers were CMC Kamal, 7th ICB, Rupali Bank, Niloy Cement, Savar Refractories, Samorita Hospital, Modern Dyeing and Alpha Tobacco.