Stocks decline for third week

Stocks continued to decline for the third week, as investors refrained from making fresh investments fearing a further fall in prices ahead of Eid.
The free float-based index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, DSEX, lost 67.44 points or 1.69 percent, to close the week at 3,979.20 points.
The premier bourse discontinued its General Index, DGEN, from Thursday as it launched a free float market cap weighted index, DSEX, developed by the Standard & Poor's in January.
“Over disappointing earnings and approaching Eid-ul-Fitr closure, investors broadly went for selling almost throughout the week," commented IDLC Investments in its weekly analysis.
Participation also dropped, as the daily average turnover plunged 32.33 percent to Tk 317 crore from the pervious week, it said.
Despite some contradictory actions in the following session over lucrative prices, market continued to step downward and the trend continued throughout the week, said the merchant bank.
Besides, investors were pursuing a meticulous strategy in their trading and continued to remain 'watchful' over the turnaround phenomenon, it said.
The losers took a strong lead over the gainers as out of 294 issues traded, 221 declined, 66 advanced and seven remained unchanged.
Only five sectors ended positive last week with food and allied seeing the highest gain of 12.31 percent. Among the major sectors, pharma gained 5.39 percent and telecom 3.10 percent.
Banks declined 4.08 percent followed by non-bank financial institutions 3.21 percent and power 0.74 percent.
Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company featured on the most traded stocks' chart with 45.40 lakh shares worth Tk 137 crore changing hands followed by Meghna Petroleum, Olympic Industries, Padma Oil, Grameenphone, Jamuna Oil, Square Pharma, Titas Gas, United Airways and Bangladesh Shipping Corporation.
GlaxoSmithKline was the highest gainer of the week posting a rise of 31.61 percent, followed by Familytex BD, Berger Paints, Marico Bangladesh, BATBC, Reckitt Benckiser, Ambee Pharma, Bata Shoe, IFIC Bank and Meghna Petroleum.
Prime Bank was the worst loser, plunging by 22.71 percent.