The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

The Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) continued a bearish trend for the third consecutive week that ended Thursday, as the heavyweight shares of bourse went through price correction amid profit taking.

The market, however, overcame a losing streak on the fourth day of the week (Wednesday) and took a sharp upturn before the weekend as investors took position in the falling market on profit expectation.

Stockbrokers said banking shares that have been ignored for a long time finally saw some light on the last trading day of the week, helping the bourse to register sharp rise.

The panic originating from the global financial crisis might have disappeared from the market by now, a market analyst said, but apprehended an internal risk that the market remained concentrated on very few stocks, which have already been overpriced.

"Any deep (price) correction, which is obvious, will cause colossal loss for the latest entrants," he said, requesting anonymity.

A fund manager said speculations were so strong that investors even bet on some stocks otherwise very poor fundamentally. Plus, he said,

over concentration on some fundamentally good shares pushed their prices too high, which is also a matter of concern.

During the week's trading, the DSE General Index (DGEN), the benchmark index, shed 50 points or 1.73 percent to close at 2,868 while the All Share Price Index (DSI) declined 41 points or 1.70 percent to close at 2,377.

The DSE-20 index of selective shares lost 54 points or 2.21 percent to close at 2,416 points.

The total turnover during the week shed 30 percent to Tk 19.08 billion from the previous week's Tk 27.25 billion. The daily average turnover of the past week also dropped 30 percent to Tk 3.82 billion from the previous week.

Market capialisation also shed 0.80 percent to Tk 1.008 trillion during the week from Tk 1.016 trillion in the previous week.

Beximco Pharma, DESCO, Titas Gas, Beximco, ACI Limited, Square Pharma, Summit Alliance, Summit Power, Aims 1st Mutual Fund and Golden Son were the turnover leaders of the week.

Top gainers of the week were United Insurance, Bengal Biscuits, Fuwang Food, Bangladesh Luggage, Bangladesh Thai Aluminium, Summit Alliance, Phoenix Insurance, Renwick Jajneswar, Eastern Insurance, Fine Foods Limited.

Beximco Fisheries, Shinepukur Holdings, Maq Paper, Metro Spinning, Dulamia Cotton, Golden Son, BCIL, M Hossain Garments, Safko Spinnings and Saiham Textiles.

Top losers were Beximco Fisheries, MIDAS Finance, Jute Spinners, Beximco Textiles, ICB, Paper Processing, Shinepukur Holdings, BD Finance, Apex Weaving and Janata Insurance.

In the past week, DESCO declared 25 percent cash and 5 percent stock dividend for 2007-08 as compared to 25 percent cash for the previous fiscal year.