The stocks rally that begun Wednesday in the Dhaka bourse continued unabated on Thursday, the last trading session before the Eid vacation, as the investors went on buying shares in the hope that the gaining streak would roll on following the regulatory move for making a uniform face value of all the scrip and mutual fund units.
DGEN, the benchmark general index of the Dhaka Stock Exchange, rose by 80.50 points, or 1.31 per cent, to close the day at 6,211.99 points.
The turnover of the bourse was Tk 545.21 crore on the day, almost equal to that of Tk 544.79 crore posted on Wednesday.
Market operators said a few institutional investors went on buying on the day as the participation of retail investors was not as strong as that on the previous day.
‘Retail investors were the main contributors to Wednesday’s turnover through their active participation in trade but today institutional investors have taken the lead,’ said a stockbroker.
He said the downtrend in the market for the past one month had pushed the prices of a number of scrip down to a reasonable level, which was also a reason for the market to rebound on Wednesday.
‘You can see that the shares having a face value of Tk 100 have not outperformed those of a face value of Tk 10. This means the investors had been waiting for a positive signal and the decision to go for a uniform face value has turned out to be just that,’ he said.
‘Today, there was no selling pressure from investors as they knew the cash would not come in their hand before the Eid. Besides, a significant number of retail investors remained optimistic about the market situation following the move made for a uniform face value of shares,’ said AIMS Bangladesh Ltd managing director Yawer Sayeed.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday decided that the face value of the scrip of all listed companies and the units of all mutual funds would have to be converted to Tk 10 by November 30 and the uniform face value would come into effect from December 1.
At present, of the 231 companies listed with the DSE, 124 have shares of Tk 100 face value and 107 of Tk 10, while 14 of the 36 mutual funds have units of Tk 100 face value, one has units of Tk 1, and the face value of the units of the rest is Tk 10.
Of the 251 issues traded on Thursday, 201 advanced, 44 declined, and six remained unchanged.
Jamuna Oil topped the list of the day’s turnover leaders, with its shares worth Tk 67.28 crore changing hands. The rest on the list of Top-10 turnover leaders were Titas Gas, Lafarge Surma Cement, The City Bank Ltd, United Airways, ONE
Bank Ltd, Meghna Petroleum, Grameenphone, Square Pharmaceuticals, and Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd.
-With New Age input
