Stocks fall on selling spree

Sale pressure of large-cap companies' shares pulled the market down yesterday, as investors aimed at booking profits in the later hours of the trading session.
DSEX, the benchmark index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, lost 16.6 points or 0.36 percent, finishing the day at 4,590 points.
DSES, the shariah index of the premier bourse, also declined slightly by 3.54 points or 0.34 percent to close at 1,032.92.
“Late hour sale pressure reversed the day's opening hype and pulled down the market,” said IDLC Investments.
The investors booked some profit from the recent bull trend of a few heavy-weighted scrips, the merchant bank said in its regular market analysis.
Investors bagged some profits from multinational companies, which were on the rising trend in the last few days, Lankabangla Securities said in its analysis.
In the meantime, the DSE introduced a new—T+2—trading settlement period yesterday, reducing the settlement time by one day in a bid to accelerate transactions.
But, the participants did not react much with the opportunity of greater liquidity as evident from the day's total turnover that declined over 3 percent to Tk 530.53 crore from the previous day's Tk 547.14 crore.
Losers dominated over the gainers as 146 declined, 106 advanced and 33 remained unchanged out of the 285 securities that traded on the DSE floor.
A total of 1.02 lakh trades were executed with 8.48 crore shares and mutual fund units changing hands on the bourse.
Among the major sectors, life insurance companies that rose 4.87 percent and cement with a gain of 4.11 percent were in the frontline. Conversely, telecommunication faced significant correction by losing 4.81 percent.
Meghna Petroleum topped the turnover chart for the second consecutive session with 13.31 lakh shares worth Tk 41 crore being traded, followed by Lafarge Surma Cement, Padma Oil, Grameenphone and Heidelberg Cement.
Desh Garments, which increased 9.91 percent, continued to be the best performer for a second day, while 3rd ICB Mutual Fund was the day's worst performer, slumping by 7.63 percent.