Stocks extend bear run to third straight week

Amid no significant trigger to inspire buyers, stocks continued their bear run till the end of the third consecutive week.

DSEX, the broad-based index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), declined by 50.9 points or 0.8% to close at 6,215, following even bigger falls in the previous two weeks.

Only 23 scrips advanced last week, against a decline of 80 in the DSE, while turnover significantly shrunk in the premier bourse.

The daily average turnover dropped by nearly one-third to Tk413 as around eight in every ten listed shares, mutual funds and corporate bonds were stuck on the floor prices that allow bare trading at the artificially held high prices.

Also, sharp declines in prices of the stocks that rallied in the previous two-three months deterred investors from trading those stocks.

Stocks extended their bearish trend as investors anticipated sluggish economic output that made them reluctant to inject fresh funds into stocks and rather remain on the sidelines in the absence of a major trigger in the market, EBL Securities wrote in its weekly market commentary.

DSEX has been falling since its recent peak of 6,600 level in early October as investors preferred less exposure in stocks due to the deteriorated corporate earnings and adverse macroeconomic situation.

However, the downward momentum was comparatively less for the blue-chip index DS30 and Shariah-compliant securities' index DSES – 0.47% and 0.74% respectively.

In the DSE, the declining stock prices reduced the weighted average price-to-earnings ratio to 14.45 on Thursday from 14.56 a week earlier.

The lower the ratio is the cheaper stocks are considered.

Investors were mostly active in IT, pharmaceuticals and life insurance stocks as half of the DSE turnover was concentrated in the three sectors.

Fuel-power, life insurance, food, textile, miscellaneous, tannery and engineering sectors ended the week with some small gains. In contrast, the market capitalisation of the majority sectors suffered more significant declines – paper and printing, jute and IT that fell by 10.3%, 7.6% and 7% respectively.