Stocks flat at opening amid surging turnover

Indices of the country's two main stock exchanges have traded relatively flat on investors' cautiousness, while turnover surged during the early trading session today.

According to a brokerage firm review, trading began on a brighter note but started to go down soon after the first 30 minutes and remained flat till the end of the first session. However, turnover has soared at the prime bourse due to short term profit booking by the investors.

The review further added that most of the investors have taken up a cautious stance and decides to play a waiting game ahead of the announcement of the Monetary Policy Statement declaration by the central bank.

Moreover, the ongoing quarterly earning declarations from several scripts have failed to meet investor's expectations, which has caused the decline in market participation.

In the first one-and-half-hour, DSEX dropped by 2.35 points – or 0.05 percent - to reach at 4,126.

The Shariah-based DSES index lost 2.14 points to settle at 961 and the blue-chip index DS30 went down by 3.76 points to stand at 1,393 .

Turnover on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) trading floor jumped by 37 percent to Tk166.79 crore in the first session till 12:00pm.

Out of the 319 issues traded in the corresponding period, 91 company's share prices advanced, 74 declined, and 154 remained unchanged.

However, the benchmark index CASPI at the Chittagong Stock Exchange (CSE) has slightly increased 2.75 points to close at 11,752 during the same time frame.